Fame and future of faecal transplantations--developing next-generation therapies with synthetic microbiomes

Exploring the Potential of GPT-4 in Biomedical Engineering: The Dawn of a New Era

Biomedical engineering is a relatively young interdisciplinary field based on engineering, biology, and medicine. Of note, the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies has made a significant impact on the biomedical engineering field, and continuously bring innovations and breakthroughs. Recently, ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI company, has gained tremendous attention due to its powerful natural language generation and understanding ability. In this study, we explored potential of GPT-4 in the eight branches of biomedical engineering including medical imaging, medical devices, bioinformatics, biomaterials, biomechanics, gene and cell engineering, tissue engineering, and neural engineering. Our results show that the application of GPT-4 will bring new opportunities for the development of this field.

Overview of Bioactive Fungal Secondary Metabolites: Cytotoxic and Antimicrobial Compounds

Microorganisms are known as important sources of natural compounds that have been studied and applied for different purposes in distinct areas. Specifically, in the pharmaceutical area, fungi have been explored mainly as sources of antibiotics, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, enzyme inhibitors, hypercholesteremic, antineoplastic/antitumor, immunomodulators, and immunosuppressants agents. However, historically, the high demand for new antimicrobial and antitumor agents has not been sufficiently attended by the drug discovery process, highlighting the relevance of intensifying studies to reach sustainable employment of the huge world biodiversity, including the microorganisms. Therefore, this review describes the main approaches and tools applied in the search for bioactive secondary metabolites, as well as presents several examples of compounds produced by different fungi species with proven pharmacological effects and additional examples of fungal cytotoxic and antimicrobial molecules. The review does not cover all fungal secondary metabolites already described; however, it presents some reports that can be useful at any phase of the drug discovery process, mainly for pharmaceutical applications.

Fecal microbiota transplantation: from the 4th century to 2013

Intestinal microbiota has been defined as a dynamic human organ. Many diseases occur as a result of the disorder of intestinal microbiota. Human fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), which was originally reported in China in the 4^th century, has become popular in recent years, since it shows an amazing effect in the treatment of pseudomembranous colitis and recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). It has not only been proposed as a first-line treatment for recurrent CDI but also been utilized to treat inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, metabolic syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. The mechanism behind the therapeutic effects of FMT is still unclear. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that FMT can use the whole intestinal microbiota from a healthy donor to replace the patient's disordered gut microbiota. At present, FMT is still in the beginning stage, and there is an urgent need to develop standardized protocols and to conduct safety analysis. This review tries to present the past, present and future of FMT by introducing the relationship between gut flora and diseases and the utilization of FMT.