Gut Microbiota for Health Expert Panel
The Gut Microbiota for Health Expert Panel represents a group of multi-disciplinary members (including primary and secondary care clinicians, microbiologists, dietitians and research scientists) with expertise and interest in the gut microbiota and its role in health and disease. The Group is under the auspices of the British Society of Gastroenterology Research Committee.
The group was formed in 2013 and now includes over 50 members who meet twice a year, arrange meetings and workshops on key topics related to the microbiota and publish articles in high impact journals, as well as writing articles to enhance understanding with the public. As the Group has grown, it is now organised into Special Interest Groups (SIGs) but maintains the over-arching meetings to ensure continuity and sharing of expertise and interest.
Vice Chair Elections 2024
Expressions of interest are welcome for the role of Vice Chair of the Gut Microbiota for Health (GMfH) Expert Panel within the BSG. The current Chair is Dr Richard Hansen, whose term ends early March 2025 when Prof Georgina Hold takes over. In the meantime, we need to recruit a Vice Chair so there is enough time for handover and exposure to the role. By taking this opportunity, you will be able to contribute to the Society with a more active role and influence matters that the Panel have identified as key to the wider membership and your fellow colleagues. More information about the goals and achievements of the Panel is on this page.
To nominate yourself, you must have been an active member of the BSG GMfH Expert Panel for a duration of one year. Please contact Linda Thomas by emailing a short statement explaining your interest in the role and what you’ll bring to the group in terms of your experience and leadership.
Nominations will close by end of Thursday 31st October 2024.
Goals
The goals of the group are: to increase awareness and understanding among clinicians of the gut microbiota and its impact on health; to be a ‘go-to’ address for clinicians (GPs, gastroenterologists, nurses and allied health professionals) for defining what is currently reliably known in this field; and to drive scientific and academic interest in the gut microbiota primarily in gastrointestinal and liver disease – although our SIGs also cover nutrition, the gut-brain axis and infectious disease. Our website lists links to up-to-date papers selected by the SIG as being particularly relevant and topical. Each SIG will take turns to post articles here with news of developments in this rapidly evolving field of biology.
In particular, the group aims to:
- To map the science and reach consensus on what is known and what is not yet known
- To develop guidelines to promote good practice
- To draft consensus statements on areas of interest for UK GPs
- To identify gaps in knowledge and research foci
- To identify research and development areas in this field that would advance understanding and lead to patient benefit
Key Achievements
The GMfH panel has achieved the following:
- Contribution to the 2024 updated BSG and HIS guidelines for FMT treatment for Clostridioides difficile
- Contribution to the NICE guidelines for FMT treatment of refractory or recurrent Clostridiodes difficile (2021)
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of FMT for the treatment of recurrent and refractory Clostridioides difficileinfection
- In conjunction with Guts UK, two information leaflets for the general public:
- Poo leaflet – an explanation of commercial gut microbiome testing
- FMT leaflet – an explanation of faecal microbiota transplantation.
- An article for the general public explaining the importance of the gut microbiota for health
- A highly cited scientific review (The gut microbiota and host health: a new clinical frontier) on the gut microbiota in relation to gut disorders: metabolic syndrome and obesity-related disease, liver disease, IBD, and colorectal cancer
- Contributions to BSG Research Workshops
- The Microbiome, Dysbiosis and GI disease. 11 April 2014
- Faecal Microbiota Transplantation: Bench, Bedside, Courtroom? 11 September 2015
- FMT workshop 2019
- Contribution to the KTN Microbiome Innovation Network report
- A letter to Archives of Disease in Childhood, calling for clinical availability of next generation microbiome sequencing.
- Contribution to the BSG video on the 2024 updated FMT guidelines
Latest Update
This year marks 10 years since the launch of the Gut Microbiota for Health (GMfH) panel, which now numbers over 50 members. The panel have continued to meet over the last two difficult years, albeit virtually, under the leadership of Mona Bajaj-Elliott.
Recent work has included the setting up of a faecal microbiota transplant (FMT) consensus group for non-C. diff patients who could potentially benefit from this treatment. Panel members have also contributed to the NICE medical technology guidance for FMT [MTG71]and current update of the BSG/HIS FMT guidelines. The panel also contributed to the recently published Microbiome Strategy Roadmap, and published a letter in Archives of Disease in Childhood calling for clinical availability of next generation sequencing. Panel members also worked on the development of education modules on the gut microbiome for clinicians, produced by the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.
Recent scientific and clinical papers of interest will continue to be listed on this web page (see Focus Areas below). There is also a new section with information for the general public about the gut microbiome, FMT and poo testing. The panel have also recently produced a new public information leaflet, in conjunction with Guts UK, on FMT.
Panel members include gastroenterologists, researchers, GPs and nurses. It is this breadth of experience, drawing together the latest understanding of the gut microbiome and application of new findings for patient care, that is a strength of the panel. Our biannual meetings, even though now on Zoom, continue to be a rich source of new information and ideas, helping to progress guidelines, collaborative research and developments in the field of the gut microbiome and its manipulation to benefit health.
Our thanks to Mona for all her hard work over the last two years. We welcome Richard Hansen as our new Chair and will be electing a new Vice Chair in due course.
Linda Thomas PhD FIFST FRSB
Secretary to the GMfH panel
January 2023
Gut Microbiota for Health Expert Panel
The Gut Microbiota for Health Expert Panel is a cross disciplinary education & interest group under the auspices of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG Research Committee)
Current Members
| Member | Member |
| Ailsa Hart (Chair Emeritus; St Mark’s Hospital, Harrow) | Julian R. Marchesi (Chair Emeritus; Imperial College London) |
| Alvin Ochieng (Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals) | Julie Harrington (Guts UK) |
| Ann Muls (The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust) | Julie Thompson (Salford Royal Hospital; Guts UK) |
| Arjan Narbad (Quadram Institute) | Kelsey Jones (Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children) |
| Barry Campbell (University of Liverpool) | Konstantinos Gerasimidis (University of Glasgow) |
| Ben Mullish (Imperial College London) | Linda Thomas (Secretary to GMfH panel) |
| Blair Merrick (Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation) | Lindsey Edwards (King’s College London) |
| Chris Lamb (Newcastle University) | Lucy Kwapisiewicz (BSG) |
| Chris Stewart (Newcastle University) | Mona Bajaj-Elliott (Chair Emeritus; UCL Great Ormond Institute of Child Health) |
| Chrysi Sergaki (NIBSC) | Naveen Sharma (Heart of England NHS Foundation) |
| Dagmar Alber (UCL Great Ormond Institute of Child Health) | Ngozi Elumogo (Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals) |
| Dean Harris (Swansea University) | Patricia Macnair (PCSG) |
| Debbie Shawcross (King’s College London) | Peter Hawkey (University of Birmingham) |
| Franklin Nobrega (University of Southampton) | Peter Whorwell (University of Manchester) |
| Georgina Hold (Vice-Chair; UNSW, Australia) | Qasim Aziz (Royal London Hospital) |
| Gerard Clarke (University College Cork) | Ramesh Arasaradnam (University of Warwick) |
| Horace Williams (Imperial College London) | Richard Hansen (Chair; University of Glasgow) |
| Iain Chapple (University of Birmingham) | Rohma Ghani (Imperial College London) |
| Ian Rowland (formerly University of Reading) | Simon Carding (Quadram Institute) |
| Indrani Mukhopadhya (University of Aberdeen) | Simon Goldenberg (Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust) |
| James Alexander (Imperial College London) | Siobhan McCormack (British Society of Lifestyle Medicine) |
| James Kennedy (Royal Berks Hospital & University of Reading) | Tanya Monaghan (University of Nottingham) |
| James Kinross (Imperial College London) | Tariq Iqbal (Chair Emeritus; University Hospital Birmingham) |
| Joanne Santini (University College London) | Tom Butler (University of Manchester) |
| John McLaughlin (University of Manchester) | Vandana Jain (King’s College Hospital) |
| Jonathan Segal (University of Melbourne) | Vishal Patel (KCL Institute of Liver Studies) |
| Jonathan Swann (Imperial College London) |