Many studies have investigated the role of the microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but few have focused on surgery specifically or its consequences on the metabolome.
Before Sonia Ramamoorthy, M.D., chief of colon and rectal surgery at UC San Diego Health, took a scalpel to Larry Smarr, she first took a virtual tour of his large intestine. It encompassed an entire room.
UC San Diego's Larry Smarr is the kind of guy who wears a Fitbit, monitors his sleep and has had his DNA sequenced. But he takes the whole self-tracking thing farther than most. He has mapped his internal organs in three dimensions. He even has a 3-D printed model of part of his colon.
