The creation of a "poo bank" could lead to more effective treatment of C.diff across the NHS, two entrepreneurial medical students believe.
The infection can cause bloating, diarrhoea and abdominal pain, and affects about 15,000 people in the UK every year.
It is said to be difficult to treat with antibiotics, with a quarter of patients commonly relapsing, resulting in lengthy hospital stays.
A procedure called faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) involves implanting healthy donor faecal matter into the infected bowel of a patient and trials have found it can cure 81% of patients compared to 31% using conventional methods.
The procedure is expensive and inaccessible to many doctors, so University of Aberdeen fourth-year medical students James McIlroy and Matthew Bracchi have formed a social enterprise - EuroBiotix CIC - which they hope will make the procedure more available through the NHS.
Using a blood bank model, they aim to provide screened ready-to-use faecal transplants to doctors.
Mr McIlroy said: "We appreciate it's not the most pleasant of topics but C.diff is a serious problem for sufferers and the NHS, and we believe our idea is a serious potential solution, with recent trials showing FMT to be a very effective treatment method.
"It's hard to get this treatment on the NHS because of the costs and logistical factors associated with screening a unique donor for every FMT.
"Effectively, we want to create a blood bank model, but with donated healthy faecal microbiota instead of blood."
The students say their method will cut the time and effort required to find a donor, avoid potential contamination issues and improve the safety and quality of material through standardised safety protocols.
Mr Milroy added: "The FMT procedure is normally carried out in the form of a colonoscopy, nasogastric/duodenal tube or a rectal enema to restore the bacterial balance.
"Donors would go through a rigorous questionnaire, physical examination and then would have to be screened for any infectious diseases.
"FMT is not regularly accessible for doctors to perform in the UK because the doctor needs to find a suitable donor, screen them for infectious diseases and then prepare the transplant material themselves, which is time-consuming and expensive.
"Our vision at EuroBiotix is to expand access to FMT to clinicians working in the NHS.
"We've established a community interest company that wants to expand access to FMT and research involving the gut bacteria, by providing these screened samples that doctors can use at cheaper prices than they would if they were doing it themselves."
Mr McIlroy came up with the idea while working on his dissertation last year.
"I read about a major outbreak of C.diff and discovered these faecal transplants, and decided I had to get something going," he said.
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