Scientists are making personalised eczema treatments from people's own microbes

Cultivating 'friendly' bacteria from people's skin makes it possible to develop personalised lotions to treat skin conditions like eczema, a new study shows.

It's the latest evidence that beneficial bacteria in our microbiome can be used to treat infections spurred by harmful microbes, and could provide a new direction in antibiotics research: something we desperately need, in light of rising antimicrobial resistance.

To find out about the makeup of these bacteria populations, Gallo and his team examined skin culture swabs taken from 30 healthy people and 49 subjects with AD.
After screening thousands of colonies of bacteria, they found that the skin of healthy people is rich in two bacterial species – Staphylococcus hominis and Staphylococcus epidermis. Both of these are known to defend against a harmful kind of bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus – aka Golden Staph, the precursor to the deadly superbug MRSA.
Dermatologists don't know if Staph actually causes AD, but it's been shown that the bacteria can help promote AD symptoms – with studies going back as far as the 1990s demonstrating that the density of S. aureus colonies corrolates with the inflammation and severity of eczema.

The findings are reported in Science Translational Medicine