Iam legion

摘要

AT WASHINGTON University's state-of-the-art Genome Institute they take an unusual interest in baby poo. They hope that studying fresh stool samples from the local neonatal unit will help them unlock the mystery of necrotising enterocolitis, a bowel disease that kills up to l in 5 premature babies. The disease obviously involves bacteria, yet it has proved impossible to pin the blame on just one microbe, suggesting that it may not be an infectious disease in the conventional sense. One possibility is that it is caused by a breakdown in the relationship between the ' gut bacteria and the body. If so, an abnormal combination of bacterial species in their stools may indicate which babies will get the disease. This is what they are looking for at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.