The Potential of Oral Microbiome Transplants Dr. Peter Zilm is a researcher and associate professor at the Adelaide Dental School in Australia. Dr. Peter Zilm is a biochemist and microbiologist who has been working in oral microbiology for 40 years. “When I began, we were interested in individual bacteria that created acid, like Streptococcus mutans,” he says. “Then we studied small groups of bacteria, called biofilms. Now we are looking at the 500 to 700 kinds of bacteria in the mouth as a whole microbiome.” Some microbiomes create an acid oral environment that can lead to dental caries, but others do not. “We’ve found that there are people who have great teeth, even though they have a lot of plaque, they don’t brush or floss as often as they should, and they eat a lot of sugar in their diet,” he says. “Their oral microbiome prevents decay and disease, even when other risk factors are present. In our work, we’ve found some of these people and we call them ‘super donors.’” With a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia, Dr. Zilm and his research team have been collecting oral microbiome samples from three groups of people: optimal donors, good donors and suboptimal donors. Using an assessment tool the team created, they rate donors’ oral health care practices and diet. They also do a clinical assessment of the oral health We’re going to do DNA sequencing so we can look at the specific genes in those bacteria to see why some produce more acid or others produce less. 16 | 2025 | Issue 1
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