Grant Award Summary

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) awarded a $428,855 Project Grant to the University of California, San Diego effective April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2028, under the Research and Training in Complementary and Integrative Health program (CFDA 93.213). The award funds an integrated computational and experimental research initiative to develop novel approaches for precision microbiota transplantation therapies. The project addresses critical gaps in fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) by developing predictive models and experimental pipelines to identify microbial communities capable of stable engraftment in individual patients. Specifically, the research will employ metabolic modeling and statistical classifiers to extract metabolic features from microbial communities and predict FMT outcomes, as well as develop culturomics-based strategies to profile unused metabolic niches within recipient microbiomes and introduce donor-derived communities matched to those niches.

The deliverables include a novel computational framework for donor-recipient matching and an experimental pipeline to identify niche-associated microbial communities suitable for engraftment. These products are designed to overcome colonization resistance—a primary barrier to successful FMT—by identifying "orthogonal" donor consortia whose metabolic requirements differ from recipient microbiota, thereby reducing metabolic competition and improving therapeutic efficacy. The research will be validated through both murine and human cohorts, providing evidence-based tools to enable clinicians to accurately predict FMT outcomes and systematically introduce therapeutic microbiota into variable patient microbiomes.