I assume you (Constellation) only want participants giving faecal samples who are resident in US (or North America)? If so, your Participant Information and Consent form should make this clear. (If not, the form should also make that clear.)
If and when you need to raise funds, as well as seeking very high net worth sources of investment, consider somewhere like CrowdCube. There are probably lots of us out here who would perhaps invest a few hundred or a few thousand - and given your approach, crowdfunding would seem an appropriate model.
Good luck - I will be watching this with interest (and continuing to read what you have to offer here on Substack).
Great catch, thank you--info/consent form edited to specify US residents! I've thought about doing a crowdfund, thanks for the suggestion. May try that or something like a preorder system for the Astrobacillus here soon
Good luck! It's always great to see people attempting to Do The Thing for real, whether that's starting a business, pursuing office, designing a product, etc. I've recently hit the age where my docs finally give some side-eye to cholesterol levels (historically high HDL, low-but-rising LDL), so might have interest in participating depending on if that trend continues going the wrong direction. Limited number of dietary changes possible when one is afflicted with autist palette/gastric sensitivities...(I bet people would pay for an actually-works probiotic that makes pulses and legumes immediately digestible sans discomfort even if one isn't used to eating them, heh)
What you're doing is a noble endeavour and I wish you the best of luck. However I am concerned that this may result as another boiled lemon. The autoimmune system regulates the microbiome, our understanding of virome is rough, and as far as I've seen we know next to nothing about fungume or the rest that aren't bacteria. So how do you know that these correlations aren't indicative of something else?
This is why "quick and dirty" is key, to me. Say we give five people a new strain. Maybe in three it doesn't seem to do anything, and in the other two there's a substantial change in our endpoint of interest.
We'll have full metagenomic sequencing data on all of them--before and after. So maybe we'll find that, in two of our nonresponders, our strain didn't even stick around, in the other one it stuck and isn't doing anything, and in our two responders it's thriving.
My point is: we'll be able to look at the other components of the microbiome, the virome, etc.--and see what's going on there. Maybe our strain needs a metabolite supplied by another bug that our non-engrafters are missing. Or maybe they have a bug that keeps the strain from engrafting when it's present. Maybe we need to phage that thing out, or find a phage-resistant strain.
It's ecology. It's going to be complicated; nobody knows that better than I do. (If you haven't read back through the archives, go check my first post--"Welcome to the Jungle"). But we have the tools, and we can't let the fear of failure stop us.
I assume you (Constellation) only want participants giving faecal samples who are resident in US (or North America)? If so, your Participant Information and Consent form should make this clear. (If not, the form should also make that clear.)
If and when you need to raise funds, as well as seeking very high net worth sources of investment, consider somewhere like CrowdCube. There are probably lots of us out here who would perhaps invest a few hundred or a few thousand - and given your approach, crowdfunding would seem an appropriate model.
Good luck - I will be watching this with interest (and continuing to read what you have to offer here on Substack).
Great catch, thank you--info/consent form edited to specify US residents! I've thought about doing a crowdfund, thanks for the suggestion. May try that or something like a preorder system for the Astrobacillus here soon
Bit of a long shot, but you could try the HHS. As insane as RFK Jr is, he's pushing the department in a direction that would be amenable to your research, so you might get some funding there. See here https://youtu.be/Ydp3XXTqUMM?si=bkOSPwn3eqzCwAXg&t=690. Although if you happen to have contacts that allow you to exploit the insanity, bear in mind that RFK Jr doesn't believe in germ theory (https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/04/rfk-jr-s-anti-vaccine-stance-is-rooted-in-a-disbelief-in-germ-theory/), so you might want to make it sound more like you're creating a magic potion or something.
Good luck! It's always great to see people attempting to Do The Thing for real, whether that's starting a business, pursuing office, designing a product, etc. I've recently hit the age where my docs finally give some side-eye to cholesterol levels (historically high HDL, low-but-rising LDL), so might have interest in participating depending on if that trend continues going the wrong direction. Limited number of dietary changes possible when one is afflicted with autist palette/gastric sensitivities...(I bet people would pay for an actually-works probiotic that makes pulses and legumes immediately digestible sans discomfort even if one isn't used to eating them, heh)
You are a formidable scientist, communicator, and leader and we all know you're going to make a huge impact with Constellation!
What you're doing is a noble endeavour and I wish you the best of luck. However I am concerned that this may result as another boiled lemon. The autoimmune system regulates the microbiome, our understanding of virome is rough, and as far as I've seen we know next to nothing about fungume or the rest that aren't bacteria. So how do you know that these correlations aren't indicative of something else?
We don't! But there's only one way to find out.
This is why "quick and dirty" is key, to me. Say we give five people a new strain. Maybe in three it doesn't seem to do anything, and in the other two there's a substantial change in our endpoint of interest.
We'll have full metagenomic sequencing data on all of them--before and after. So maybe we'll find that, in two of our nonresponders, our strain didn't even stick around, in the other one it stuck and isn't doing anything, and in our two responders it's thriving.
My point is: we'll be able to look at the other components of the microbiome, the virome, etc.--and see what's going on there. Maybe our strain needs a metabolite supplied by another bug that our non-engrafters are missing. Or maybe they have a bug that keeps the strain from engrafting when it's present. Maybe we need to phage that thing out, or find a phage-resistant strain.
It's ecology. It's going to be complicated; nobody knows that better than I do. (If you haven't read back through the archives, go check my first post--"Welcome to the Jungle"). But we have the tools, and we can't let the fear of failure stop us.