MicrobiomePost

In this interview, Liam O’Mahony explores how diet influences the immune system through the metabolic activity of the gut microbiota. Rather than acting only as a direct source of nutrients, food provides substrates that intestinal microbes transform into bioactive molecules capable of modulating immune responses. A key example was tryptophan metabolism. Gut bacteria can both metabolize dietary tryptophan into a broad range of indole derivatives and, in some cases, produce tryptophan themselves.

Stomach cancer is aggressive and can come back even after immunotherapy, which helps the immune system fight cancer cells. Now, a new study found that tiny particles released by a gut microbe can boost the effectiveness of immunotherapy in stomach cancer. The findings, published in Cell Reports Medicine, suggest that these particles can activate specific immune cells and turn them into tumor-fighting cells. Scientists have known that gut bacteria can help the immune system fight cancer.

Although the gut microbiota is known to influence health and disease, much of its bacterial diversity remains poorly understood because many species are hard to grow in the lab. Now, researchers have found that uncultured gut bacteria, particularly one group called CAG-170, are key contributors to a healthy microbiota. The findings, published in Cell Host & Microbe, suggest that CAG-170 and other uncultured gut bacteria can be critical targets for therapeutic development.

Interview with Giulia Collattuzzo, from University of Bologna (Italy). Dietary fiber intake may be associated with a lower risk of gastric cancer, with a protective effect that appears consistent across sex, tumor location and histological subtype.

Somewhere in the next few years, an F1 team will begin sequencing its driver’s gut microbiome before every race weekend. They will not do it because they care about health. They will do it because they have found a correlation between microbial composition and reaction time. Or between gut inflammation and the cognitive drop that costs three-tenths of a second in the final stint.

Gut microbes begin developing at birth and are shaped by the mother and environment, but factors scuh as antibiotics can disrupt this process, affecting growth and development. Now, researchers are uncovering how region-specific strains of infant gut bacteria are adapted to local diets and environments. The findings, published in Cell, show that two early colonizers – Bifidobacterium longum and B.

Gut bacteria usually support digestion and gut health, but they can become harmful if conditions change. Now, a study in mice shows that HMGB1, a protein released by intestinal cells into colonic mucus, prevents bacterial adhesion and virulence. The findings, published in Cell Host & Microbe, suggest that HMGB1 protects intestinal cells and helps to maintain a healthy microbiota. A protective mucus layer in the colon keeps gut microbes away from gut cells and helps prevent inflammation.

The fifth edition of IBS Days, a congress entirely dedicated to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, will take place in Bologna, Italy, from June 15 to 17, 2026, at the historic Palazzo Re Enzo. The meeting will bring together an international faculty of distinguished key opinion leaders and will open on Monday, June 15, with a postgraduate course focused on the diagnosis and most advanced therapeutic approaches for IBS.

Postbiotics are emerging as a promising frontier in healthcare, acting as key mediators between the gut microbiota and the host. Within the broader “biotic continuum” that includes prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics, microbial metabolites represent the final functional output of microbiota activity. These molecules can act locally on immune, endocrine, and epithelial cells, contributing to mucosal homeostasis, and may also enter the circulation, influencing the physiology of distant organs.

In this interview, Giovanni Marasco from University of Bologna, discusses the growing evidence that links gut microbiota dysbiosis to the pathophysiology, clinical prognosis, disease progression, and treatment response of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).