Bacterial blockade
For decades, doctors have understood that microbes in the human gut can influence how certain drugs work in the body — by either activating or inactivating specific compounds — but questions have remained about exactly how the process works. Harvard scientists are now beginning to provide those answers. In a paper published July 19 in Science, Peter Turnbaugh, a Bauer Fellow at the Center for Systems Biology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and Henry Haiser, a postdoctoral fellow, identify a pair of genes that appear to be responsible for allowing a specific strain of bacteria to break down a widely prescribed cardiac drug into an inactive compound, as well as a possible way to turn the process off. “The traditional view of microbes in the gut relates to how they influence the digestion of our diet,” Turnbaugh said. “But we also know that there are over 40 different drugs that...