Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first person to observe bacteria, by scraping plaque from his own teeth and inspecting it through one of his handcrafted microscopes. His pioneering work contributed to establishing microbiology as a scientific discipline.
Photo Credit: Photo by Don Hamerman
Carl Woese rewrites the Tree of Life with the discovery of Archaea. He pioneers the use of marker genes such as the 16S ribosomal gene as a method to distinguish between microbial lineages, greatly expanding our knowledge of the microbial world.
Efforts by Vedanta cofounder Dan Littman lead to the identification and cloning of CD4 and CD8, molecules on the surface of T cells that are crucial to immune recognition and response.
Vedanta cofounder Ruslan Medzhitov discovers the role of human toll-like receptors in sensing microbial infections, laying a foundation for the field of innate immunity.
Vedanta cofounder Alexander Rudensky publishes key work describing the role of the FOXP3 gene in the process by which T cells become regulatory T cells, which can prevent autoimmunity.
Vedanta cofounder Ruslan Medzhitov demonstrates that the microbiota influences intestinal immune homeostasis via TLR signaling. This work helps establish that the microbiota can modulate intestinal inflammation, providing a new perspective on the evolution of host-microbial interactions.
David Relman's group publishes seminal work highlighting the great diversity of human-associated bacteria and urges consideration of a “second human genome project” aimed at cataloguing the thousands of microbes that live in association with humans.
Jeff Gordon's group shows that the composition of intestinal microbes plays a role in the development of obesity.
The NIH launches the Human Microbiome Project to enable the comprehensive characterization of bacteria that live in association with humans.
Vedanta cofounders Dan Littman and Kenya Honda show that murine-associated bacteria (2009) and human-associated bacteria (2010) can induce intestinal Th17 cells, opening new avenues for the treatment of autoimmune disease via manipulation of the microbiome.
Vedanta Biosciences launched by PureTech Health and founders Ruslan Medzhitov, Alexander Rudensky, Dan Littman, Kenya Honda, and Brett Finlay, scientific pioneers in immunology and the human microbiome.
Vedanta cofounder Kenya Honda discovers that commensal bacteria in the Clostridium genus are capable of inducing regulatory T cells, suggesting that administration of gut-resident Clostridium bacteria could reduce susceptibility to disease.
Josbert Keller’s group conducts the first randomized, blinded, controlled trial of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for recurrent CDI, resulting in a cure rate of approximately 90%.
Vedanta cofounder Kenya Honda publishes work on the first rationally-designed bacterial consortia based on human-associated bacteria (Nature, 2013), and implicates bacterial production of short-chain fatty acids in the mechanism of action (Nature, 2013).
Vedanta opens Cambridge state-of-the art facility for discovery and CGMP manufacturing of bacterial consortia drugs.
Vedanta granted foundational patents in the microbiome field in the US and EU broadly covering drugs based on bacterial consortia containing Clostridium bacteria.
Vedanta initiates first-ever studies with defined consortia (for cancer, CDI, food allergy) and demonstrates safety and long-term colonization in VE303/VE202 studies.
Our scientific founders have pioneered our modern understanding of how the immune system senses microbes, and contributed seminal discoveries to the microbiome field, including the identification of immune-regulating and immune-potentiating bacteria that live in association with humans.
