Description of Collaborative Activity: |
To explore the potential role that fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) and pre/probiotics may play in cancer therapeutics and to address reproducibility and safety to inform translational human studies and clinical trials, NCI convened a “Strategic Workshop on Rigor and Reproducibility: Precision Fecal Microbiota Transplant and Microbiome Cancer Therapeutics” on September 5, 2019. This timely meeting brought together scientists and FDA regulatory staff in the fields of FMT, pre/probiotics, nutrition, microbiome, synthetic biology, biomarkers, computation, immunology, gastroenterology, oncology, and infection. Workshop Goals Assess the current state of clinical research and clinical trials involving FMT and microbiome-based cancer therapeutics; Discuss the knowledge gaps and future opportunities in the field; Provide feedback to National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding future priority areas to enhance precision- and mechanism-based rigor and reproducibility of defined microbiome-based therapeutic clinical research for cancer and other diseases Workshop Focus Areas Standardization (material manufacture and quality control), FMT donor selection, microbiome measurement, clinical protocols, procedures, and trial design; Microbiome composition and function as biomarkers associated with cancer therapy, such as reproducibility, safety, and efficacy; Confounding variables — host genetic and disease state, environment, antibiotics, diet and other lifestyle factors; Clinical efficacy and safety of FMT and microbiome-based cancer therapy; Clinically relevant models and human translational studies; Data sharing; FDA regulatory issues |
