How You Participate

First you need to Sign Up and select your level of contribution for the project. You do this by selecting one of the perks listed in the Make a contribution page. Each of the perks will allow you to receive a different number of kits. Within two weeks, you will receive your kit or kits in the mail together with detailed instructions on how to proceed.

Shipping within the UK first class should be around £2.90, but we recommend taking the sample to the post office to get the proper postage. Getting the postage right on the first try is important since samples that spend a long time in transit will likely not produce the highest quality results. After you have returned your sample to us, the samples will be processed and analysed by the University of California San Diego, after which you will be able to access your results online via login. You will be provided with a list of the major groups of bacteria in your sample and the proportions in which they are found. We estimate that this will take around 3 months and once we provide you with your results you will be able to see how your bacterial community shapes up.

From the diet and lifestyle information that you provide we will be able to show you how your results compare to other participants who are within the same diet and lifestyle group as you. Having a very different result to them does not necessarily mean anything bad, it can just be that you have genetic or lifestyle differences producing different bacterial profiles.

We hope by joining us you will learn about your own microbes and help us understand how to keep our microbes and ourselves as healthy as possible.