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The Quest to Turn Human Waste Into Medicine

After success in early stage trials, MaaT Pharma is on the verge of becoming the first company to have an approved microbiome-related product for cancer care.
At MaaT Pharma’s manufacturing center on the outskirts of Lyon in southeast France, a motherlode of human poo arrives every few months. From a white courier van, the refrigerated samples—individually packaged in sealed bags—are whisked to a biocontainment laboratory. There, a technician injects each pouch with a chemical solution. This liquefies the contents to maximize the volume of, um, material that can be extracted while preserving and protecting bacteria from damage.
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