You Are Your Bacteria

Variation in our microbial inhabitants could help tailor efforts to treat illness.
After a trip to Peru last year, microbiologist Rob Knight came home with a horrendous case of traveler's diarrhea. He took some antibiotics and quickly recovered. But because Knight had been participating in one of his own studies of the human microbiome--the diverse collection of bacteria and other organisms that inhabit our gut, skin, mouths, and other parts--he could examine how the drugs changed the microbial population in his gut. Microbes did repopulate his digestive tract, but the community makeup was different.