The Microbiome Health Research Institute, Inc.

Dr. Kassam will lead Seed Health's clinical research and medical affairs, driving the development and validation of the company's microbiome health innovations and enhancing practitioner engagement BOSTON, April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Seed Health, a microbiome science company, today announced the appointment of Zain Kassam, M.D., M.P.H., as Chief Medical Officer. An award-winning physician-scientist, Dr. Kassam has played a pivotal role in the advancement of microbiome science for over a decade. His extensive body of work includes over 200 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts, including in The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, and Gastroenterology, and co-authoring international clinical practice guidelines. He has championed more than 30 Phase I-III clinical trials with top-tier academic institutions across multiple therapeutic areas. As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kassam will collaborate with Chief Scientific Officer, Dirk Gevers, Ph.D., to oversee Seed Health's R&D portfolio. He will expand the company's gut microbiome program and guide upcoming launches in the vaginal and skin microbiome sectors, as well as in brain health, metabolic health, and longevity. Continue Reading Zain Kassam, M.D., M.P.H. "I am inspired by Seed Health's unwavering commitment to scientific excellence for everyday health and its pioneering platform for microbiome innovation," said Dr. Kassam. "The convergence of Seed's comprehensive microbiome insights with robust clinical validation offers a unique opportunity to advance the next generation of microbiome interventions and make a true impact on human lives." Dr. Kassam will oversee Seed Health's clinical strategy, guiding the trajectory from discovery through go-to-market. Collaborating with Seed Health's scientific and clinical advisory boards, as well as healthcare practitioners, he will ensure the company's interventions meet the highest standards of clinical efficacy and directly address both practitioner and patient needs. Furthermore, Dr. Kassam will manage medical affairs, stewarding awareness of the microbiome's impact on health and enhancing the understanding of Seed's clinically validated products throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Before joining Seed Health, Dr. Kassam co-founded and was Chief Medical Officer at two foundational microbiome therapeutics companies, OpenBiome and Finch Therapeutics. At OpenBiome, he was instrumental in creating the first public stool bank, setting a new standard for safe fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), and pioneering clinical research in the microbiome. His tenure at Finch Therapeutics was marked by remarkable growth, as he led two landmark positive Phase II trials, and led the company through its NASDAQ IPO. Dr. Kassam has served as a Scientific Advisory Board member for the American Gastroenterological Association Center for Gut Microbiome Research & Education, and Co-Chair of the Chief Medical Officer 360o Summit, where he facilitated knowledge translation to clinicians. "Dr. Kassam's work seamlessly bridges the gap between clinical practice and microbiome science, transforming scientific discovery into real-world applications," said Raja Dhir, Co-Founder of Seed Health. "With the leadership of Dr. Kassam, we will significantly expand the impact of our work, introducing innovations essential to the ecology of care and redefining excellence in microbial innovation." Dr. Kassam is the latest high-profile addition to Seed Health's scientific leadership team, joining Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Gevers, formerly of the Janssen Human Microbiome Institute. He will also collaborate closely with esteemed partner scientists such as immunologist Dr. Cezmi Akdis, pioneering vaginal microbiome scientist Dr. Jacques Ravel, computational biologist Dr. Eran Segal, and microbiome researcher Dr. Sarkis Mazmanian, known for his work on the gut-brain axis. This dynamic team reflects Seed Health's commitment to stewarding microbiome applications for human and planetary health. "Dr. Kassam's expertise in microbiome science will be instrumental in fully realizing the potential of our advanced platform," said Dr. Gevers. "His distinguished track record in clinical development and foundational research ensures that we can transform cutting-edge microbiome insights into practical, effective health solutions." Dr. Kassam holds an M.P.H. from Harvard University and has completed postdoctoral training at MIT. He was awarded his M.D. from Western University in London, Canada. Dr. Kassam completed his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training at McMaster University. Dr. Kassam has received numerous awards, including the 2020 Public Health Innovator Award from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, among the most prestigious awards for Alumni. Media Contact [email protected] About Seed Health Seed Health is a microbiome science company pioneering innovations in probiotics and living medicines to impact human and planetary health. Founded to realize the potential of the microbiome, our platform enables the translation of breakthrough science across a portfolio targeting health outcomes from infancy to aging. Our consumer innovations are commercialized under Seed®—an award-winning, science-first brand known for clinically validated innovations in probiotics. Our pipeline encompasses both indication-specific and preventive applications for gastrointestinal and digestive health, women's health, skin, pediatrics, mental health, metabolic function, and nutrition. Our environmental research is conducted under SeedLabs, which was founded to advance novel bacterial interventions to enhance biodiversity and restore ecosystems impacted by human activity. SOURCE Seed Health

Changes in the way that humans live and eat have resulted in tremendous alterations in the gut microbiome, especially over the past few decades. These changes have been linked to increased rates of asthma, allergies, diseases of the digestive system, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions. Scientists propose that we can combat these trends by having individuals bank samples of their own gut microbiota when they are young and healthy for potential use later in life in an autologous fecal microbiota transplant (FMT). Changes in the way that humans live and eat have resulted in tremendous alterations in the gut microbiome, especially over the past few decades. These changes have been linked to increased rates of asthma, allergies, diseases of the digestive system, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions. In an opinion article published June 30 in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, a team from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) proposes that we can combat these trends by having individuals bank samples of their own gut microbiota when they are young and healthy for potential use later in life in an autologous fecal microbiota transplant (FMT). "The idea of 'rewilding' the human microbiome has taken off in recent years and has been hotly debated from medical, ethical, and evolutionary perspectives," says corresponding author Yang-Yu Liu, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and an Associate Scientist in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH. "It is still unknown if people in industrialized societies can gain some health benefit by restoring their microbiome to an ancestral state. In this paper, we proposed a way to rejuvenate the human gut microbiome." FMTs using donor stool have shown benefit for treating some conditions, primarily infections with Clostridioides difficile (C. diff), which affect about half a million people and kill about 29,000 in the United States every year. However, one limitation of using donor stool is variability in the host's response, likely due to genetic and environmental differences between the donor and host. Efforts in Yang's lab focus on understanding the ecological dynamics and organizational principles of the human microbiome to inform the design of microbiome-based therapeutics. OpenBiome, a nonprofit stool bank based in Somerville, Massachusetts, is the first stool bank to offer an option for individuals to bank their own stool for future treatment of C. diff infection. Yang and his colleagues looked at whether this approach might be feasible on a large scale for many other diseases. "Conceptually, the idea of stool banking for autologous FMT is similar to when parents bank their baby's cord blood for possible future use," says Yang. "However, there is greater potential for stool banking, and we anticipate that the chance of using stool samples is much higher than for cord blood." "But there are many practical issues to implementing this idea," says Yang. The article takes a closer look at some of those issues, including optimal storage methods, how much stool should be banked, and what the costs might be. "Autologous transplants would naturally avoid or at least mitigate donor-recipient compatibility issues, but a major disadvantage of autologous transplants is the need for long-term cryopreservation of stool samples, typically requiring liquid nitrogen storage," says co-author Shanlin Ke, a postdoctoral research fellow in Yang's lab. "The long-term safe storage and subsequent resuscitation and cultivation of stool samples is a fundamental research question by itself. To inform practical guidelines for stool banking, further research is needed to systematically test longer storage times and preservation, resuscitation, and cultivation procedures." Yang acknowledges that widespread banking could lead to a system in which those with more financial resources are more likely to have banked stool for future use. "We do not anticipate that all individuals in our society are willing or able to pay the cost associated with the service of 'rejuvenating' their gut microbiome, in the same way that not all parents pay the cost of cord blood banking for their newborns," he says. "But as scientists our job is to provide a scientific solution that may eventually benefit human well-being. Developing a reasonable business model and pricing strategy so that the solution is affordable to everyone would require the joint force of entrepreneurs, scientists, and perhaps governments." "Autologous FMTs have the potential to treat autoimmune diseases like asthma, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, obesity, and even heart disease and aging," says co-author Scott T. Weiss, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard and Associate Director of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH. "We hope this paper will prompt some long-term trials of autologous FMTs to prevent disease." This work is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01AI141529, R01HD093761, RF1AG067744, UH3OD023268, U19AI095219, and U01HL089856).

GERMANTOWN, Md., Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In early 2020 when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a series of safety alerts on the risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 via fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), the Cambridge-based stool bank OpenBiome was left with freezers full of processed donor stool samples that could not be released until tested for the new virus. Now, thanks to a testing solution provided by the microbiome laboratory services company CosmosID, the stool bank is able to quickly screen and distribute the stored treatments to patients across the US who suffer from recurrent C. difficile infection. The custom CosmosID test, which OpenBiome implemented after review by the FDA, detects SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in donor stool using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)—the same molecular technique used in COVID-19 diagnostic testing. OpenBiome will now test its large inventory of FMT treatments manufactured after December, 2019, which had largely been previously ineligible for distribution per the FDA safety alerts. The test allows OpenBiome to restore its supply chain of FMT treatments and once again make them widely available to patients. Carolyn Edelstein, Executive Director of OpenBiome, says, "CosmosID brought a solutions-oriented mindset to the challenge — they were creative, pragmatic, and proactive, and were utterly committed to the goal of making sure that patients would maintain safe access to fecal transplantation. It has been terrific to collaborate with them on this solution for patients and public health." Manoj Dadlani, CEO of CosmosID, says in order to successfully develop the test, the company leveraged its scientific team's particular expertise in molecular techniques for analyzing stool samples. The team also flexibly adapted to the changing regulatory requirements during the validation process. Dadlani says, "Our team has extensive experience using next-generation sequencing technologies to analyze gut microbiomes for many different applications – including detecting the presence of disease-causing microbes. We welcomed this collaboration with OpenBiome to come up with a quick and easy test for their banked stool samples, which helps them continue their work." Majdi Osman, Chief Medical Officer at OpenBiome, emphasizes the test's importance to patients. "Rigorous donor screening is critical to enhancing safety and enabling access to FMT for patients with C. difficile who have exhausted all treatment options. Until now, the challenges of directly testing for SARS-CoV-2 in stool have significantly limited physicians' abilities to treat patients with C. difficile infection," he says. "Screening our inventory using the stool-based assay developed by CosmosID will allow thousands of patients to get much-needed treatment for C. difficile infection. For these patients, an FMT is a chance to recover from a debilitating infection and return to a normal life." To find out more, visit the CosmosID website: About CosmosID CosmosID®, based in Germantown, Maryland, is a genomics big data company focused on rapid identification of microorganisms for molecular diagnostics, clinical trials, public health, food safety, agriculture, and environmental applications. The CosmosID platform uses proprietary sequence analysis algorithms to accurately pro microorganisms in a metagenomic sample employing next-generation DNA sequencing. CosmosID was founded in 2008 by Dr. Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation and currently Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. To learn more please visit . Media Contact: Vickie Lord 320397@email4pr.com 703-995-9879