Dr. Sears on Microbiota in Colon Cancer

Cynthia L. Sears, MD, professor of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, member of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, discusses microbiota in patients with colon cancer.

When single organisms, particularly bacteria such as e-coli or enterotoxigenic bacteroides fragilis, are added to a complex microbiota in a mouse, you increase the numbers of tumors in the colon compared with the background mouse, says Sears.

At a minimum, studying those models helps experts in the field to better understand the mechanisms by which bacteria may be procarcinogenic and allows for the ability to look at humans who have those organisms and see if any of those mechanisms transfer there, explains Sears.