A Cure For Childhood Leakaemia

Guardian UK: ‘For 30 years I’ve been obsessed by why children get leukaemia. Now we have an answer’ - Newly knighted cancer scientist Mel Greaves explains why a cocktail of microbes could give protection against disease

To do this, Greaves and his team have started working on the bacteria, viruses and other microbes that live in the human gut. These help us digest our food but they also give an indication of the bugs we have been exposed to in life. For example, people in developed countries tend to have far fewer bacterial species in their guts, it has been found – and that is because they have been exposed to fewer species of microbes in the early stages of their lives, a reflection of those “cleaner” lives they are now living.