Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) remains a major cause of healthcare-associated diarrhoea, with rising antibiotic resistance and frequent relapses making treatment increasingly difficult. While faecal microbiota transplantation has shown promise, the exact mechanisms behind its success remain unclear, highlighting the urgent need for new, targeted therapies.
To address this, development took place of a Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM) using Toxigenic C. Difficile spores. Unlike previous models using non-toxigenic strains, this approach could unlock critical insights into colonization resistance and immune protection, and accelerate the testing of novel, non-antibiotic treatments.
Key challenges include ensuring safety by inducing only mild to moderate symptoms, determining the right spore dose, and optimizing antibiotic pre-treatment to make volunteers susceptible without undue risk.
If successful, this model could revolutionize C. difficile research and offer a powerful tool to better understand the disease and fast-track the development of next-generation therapies.