Your Microbiome, Kidney Transplantation, and YOU

Welcome to the website for the Gut Microbiome and Serum Metabolites as a Biological Mechanism Underlying Pain in Kidney Transplantation or “Biome-KT” Study! Biome-KT seeks to better understand how communities of microbes, and the chemicals they produce may affect pain, change after kidney transplantation, and how these changes affect pain over time.  We hope this study will lead to the development of patient-centered treatments for pain by manipulating the microbiome through diet, stress reduction, and or supplementation with pre/probiotics.

Biome-KT is a study that does not involve any experimental medications of treatments. We all have bacteria in our gut (known as the microbiome) that help make us stay healthy. When our kidneys are not working properly, these bacteria change and may cause inflammation that can make symptoms like pain, fatigue, or sleep problems worse. The goal of the study is to 1) better understand what bacteria you have in your gut, and 2) determine if these bacteria make symptoms you may have worse. If they do, in the future we may be able to changes to your diet, activity and stress level to cause the bacteria that cause inflammation to reduce in number, and reduce your symptoms. But first we must do this study to understand if the bacteria are related to your symptoms.