Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Will You Donate Your Poop To Science?
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 9, 2014
Modified Nov 9, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 9, 2014
Modified Nov 9, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
A group of New York gastroenterologists are trying to unlock the mysteries of the microbiome, but first they need your poop.
Bacteria vastly outnumber human cells in your body, but medical science has only just begun to understand how they behave and how we might harness their power to treat diseases.
Dr. Arun Swaminath, the director of Lenox Hill Hospital's Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program, is one of a group of seven physicians across the city who are studying patients with inflammatory bowel disease to learn more about the ecosystems of the gut. "It's new and hot right now to talk about bacteria," Dr. Swaminath says.
"Basically, we're all sterile in the womb, and then we get colonized by our mother’s bacteria. As we get older, the bacteria change. There are trillions of bacterial cells per cubic centimeter in the large intestine; bacteria in our gut play a role, we're just trying to elucidate what kind of role they play."
Dr. Swaminath's patients with Crohn's disease are sometimes treated with antibiotics. "Once I stop the antibiotics, within two weeks, the toehold bacteria are back. So I briefly interrupted the bacteria, but for three months, the patient feels much better." Dr. Swaminath says, "We don't know exactly what's happening here."
The longitudinal study involves more than 25 patients across several New York City academic medical centers. "We're all just regular doctors, and we see patients, and that's our full-time job," Dr. Swaminath says of the other doctors in the study. All of them are participating on their own time.
"We all sat down at my kitchen table and talked about the things we were passionate about, not just ways to prescribe certain therapies, but how to get people to figure out what the right treatment is."
Dr. Julian Abrams, a gastroenterologist at Columbia, says that Dr. Swaminath's research is coming at a crucial moment. "Now that we have the technology and the computing speed has progressed exponentially over the last ten to fifteen years, all of a sudden we're able to look at the microbiome and we're finding all these amazing things going on.
"We know bacteria are important in terms of whether or not you get certain diseases and how these diseases behave once you have them, but to really understand this we need to understand what's normal," says Dr. Abrams, who is unaffiliated with the study.
"No one knows what a good, healthy microbiome really looks like, and to do so you need the help of otherwise healthy volunteers."
But procuring fresh poop isn't as easy. "There's no way to go online and say, 'I need stool from 100 healthy people to do research on this thing,'" Dr. Swaminath laughs. "It's an exciting time, people are taking probiotics, they're going to health coaches, and all that is nice, but we're trying to determine what it is you can do that will actually matter, and what you can use specifically to make you healthier."
Donating your stool to science is easy. If you're healthy, interested, (and not taking any medication), send an email to [email protected].
Dr. Swaminath adds, "If you want to help us push this field forward, how about donating some of your stool?"
Tagged
columbia
inflammatory bowel disease
microbiome
poop
what's in your gut
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Early Addition: There's a new hot duck, this time in Queens
Because a mandarin duck has been frolicking in Flushing, here are your early links: RHONY star racked up a lot of parking tickets, 57 best Italian restaurants in New Jersey, Judi Dench said the "Cats" movie was bad and more.
By
James Ramsay
Published Oct 20, 2026 at 9:40 a.m. ET
NYPD hate crime unit investigates smashed windows, ‘Pal Action’ graffiti at UES Capital One
The bank previously faced protests over a $90 million loan to an Israeli drone company.
By
Ryan Kost
News
NYPD hate crime unit investigates smashed windows, ‘Pal Action’ graffiti at UES Capital One
The bank previously faced protests over a $90 million loan to an Israeli drone company.
By
Ryan Kost
A reliably Republican part of NJ, until ICE came to town
By
Mike Hayes
NYC school integration debate exposes tensions between Black parents and Mamdani
By
Elizabeth Kim
Queens man charged with hate crime at Jewish-owned bagel shop displaying Israeli flags
By
Giulia Heyward
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .