Attend The PROMISE Trial webinar: an innovative ‘Poo Transplant’ Trial to beat liver cirrhosis

Do you know what a Faecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) is? If you’re thinking it is the transfer of poo from a donor with healthy gut bacteria to someone else, you’d be right! But why?

In this seminar organised by NIHR Guy’s and St Thomas’ Biomedical Research Centre, we explore the PROMISE clinical trial led by Debbie Shawcross, Professor of Hepatology and Chronic Liver Failure, who is investigating the use of Faecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) as a frozen ‘poo’ capsule to help patients who have permanent liver damage (liver cirrhosis).

Our body contains trillions of bacteria. Many of these live in our bowel which keeps us healthy and helps our immune system to fight against infections. However, an increased number of ‘unfriendly’ bacteria are found in the bowel of patients with liver permanent liver damage, which makes them more likely to have infections. Some antibiotics are starting not to work as well as they are used so frequently, and the bowel can become infected with ‘super-bugs’.

Replacing the unfriendly bowel bacteria in patients with cirrhosis with the bacteria donated from the poo of healthy volunteers could be highly beneficial and reduce antibiotic usage.

Join Prof Shawcross and her team, a patient and member from the British Liver Trust Charity for this one-hour seminar where they will talk about what this innovative and ground-breaking FMT trial involves for patients and how the ‘poo’ capsules are produced from person to pill right here at St Thomas’s Hospital.

Those that register for this event will be sent a joining link on the morning of 20 May 2022.

You can find out more about the trial on the PROMISE website.

The PROMISE trial is being funded by the Efficacy and Mechanism of Evaluation Programme (EME), an National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council partnership and jointly sponsored by King’s College London and Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.