Major

Biology

Anticipated Graduation Year

2021

Access Type

Open Access

Abstract

The environment within the human gut contains many microorganisms, called human gastrointestinal microbiota. Throughout recent years, studies have found a correlation between the composition of the human gut microbiome and persons’ physiological response to chemotherapy. We have tested the effect of several chemotherapy drugs on the growth of human gut microbiota samples and preserved samples exhibiting moderate growth and untreated samples. The next phase of the project is to DNA sequence the samples to determine which bacterial species were killed by each chemotherapy drug. These findings could be utilized to increase the efficacy and decrease the toxicity of chemotherapy drugs.

Faculty Mentors & Instructors

Dr. Michael Burns, Loyola University Chicago Department of Biology

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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Effects of Common Chemotherapy Drugs on the Human Gut Microbiome

The environment within the human gut contains many microorganisms, called human gastrointestinal microbiota. Throughout recent years, studies have found a correlation between the composition of the human gut microbiome and persons’ physiological response to chemotherapy. We have tested the effect of several chemotherapy drugs on the growth of human gut microbiota samples and preserved samples exhibiting moderate growth and untreated samples. The next phase of the project is to DNA sequence the samples to determine which bacterial species were killed by each chemotherapy drug. These findings could be utilized to increase the efficacy and decrease the toxicity of chemotherapy drugs.