On the internet, you can find quite a few parties selling a gut microbiome test. But what actually sets InnerBuddies’ product apart from all these other tests? Here is an overview of the many aspects in which we think we are unique.

10 reasons why our gut microbiome test is top class

1 - Special liquid buffer to keep the poop sample stable

When you receive our test kit at home, it contains all kinds of materials to make it very easy to take a poop sample on the toilet. Also included is a collection tube containing a buffer liquid. You are supposed to put the poop sample in there. The buffer liquid ensures that your poop sample remains stable for 1 to 2 years. We use the very best buffer liquid (which is also quite expensive in terms of cost) so we can be sure that the quality of your poop sample remains stable. In fact, our team works with buffer liquid suppliers to make even better versions.

2 - Innovations in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)

There are all kinds of suppliers of DNA sequencing equipment. But DNA equipment is not all the same and DNA analysis results vary in accuracy by type of DNA equipment. The InnerBuddies team, because of its scientific background, has a strong focus on the best quality. This is reflected in a number of aspects:

• We regularly test all our external laboratories with so-called high-quality “mock samples”. Mock samples are samples of which we know exactly what bacteria they contain and in which quantity. This allows us to check whether the output quality of the DNA equipment matches the actual composition in the mock samples.
• We use so-called Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). This is a more expensive and more advanced technique than PCR, qPCR or ELISA used by many other intestinal flora test providers. As a result, we find ALL bacteria in your gut microbiome test, these other techniques only find a limited set of predetermined bacteria. In our dashboard, you can therefore download a list of all bacteria found.
• We work closely with innovative parties to get the quality of DNA output at the very highest level. For instance, we collaborate with both Illumina and Oxford Nanopore on DNA sequencing field and also with parties that supply high-quality materials needed for performing this analysis.

3 - Special techniques in the laboratory

Every bacteria is unique. For example, you have gram-negative bacteria and gram-positive bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria show blue or purple after gram staining in a laboratory test. They have thick cell walls. Gram-negative bacteria show pink or red when stained and have thin walls. Since gram-positive bacteria have thicker cell walls than gram-negative bacteria, it is more difficult to distinguish them properly. Without special techniques, you would see gram-negative bacteria very well while you see gram-positive bacteria quite little. But this obviously does not mean they are not there. In short, we use special techniques to ensure that we can properly distinguish and count both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.

4 - Proprietary A.I.-based calculation pipeline

The output of a DNA sequencing run is a large collection of DNA sequences. Each DNA sequence is nothing more than a sequence of letters (which represent the different amino acids). Then the work really begins. Based on these sequences, we have to find out exactly which bacteria are involved or which bacterial functions are contained in that sequence. To do this, we use all kinds of complicated A.I. techniques that, based on pattern recognition and matching with large databases of known sequences, try to find out exactly which bacteria are involved or which bacteria functions are contained in those sequences. InnerBuddies has built and trained its own A.I. models for this that use a similar technique as OpenAI uses with ChatGPT.

5 - Calculation of bacteria as well as bacterial functions

Most gut flora test providers only look at the bacterial population in the gut microbiome sample. However, people from Asia have a completely different bacterial population in their gut than people from Europe. Even per country, this differs. This is because people from various countries follow a very different diet, as dietary habits and culture are very different from country to country.

Therefore, InnerBuddies performs another calculation that is much more complex, namely: we identify bacterial functions. These bacterial functions are indispensable to the human body and are thus much more stable across the population. These are the biological functions performed by the bacteria in the gut. In fact, multiple bacteria can perform the same functions. This type of computation is very new and innovative and has been increasingly used by scientists in gut flora research in recent years. InnerBuddies is the first party worldwide to also make this type of calculation available in gut flora consumer testing. It is also a calculation that requires a lot of ICT knowledge and capacity, this calculation takes around 4 hours per sample on large servers while a bacteria calculation takes only 2 minutes per sample.

6 - The only intestinal flora test supplier that also asks you to fill in a food diary

InnerBuddies also has a strong base of dieticians on its team. A food diary is part of the standard tool set/method of dieticians. Therefore, InnerBuddies has also integrated a food diary into its solution. We ask all clients to complete a 3-day food diary where they indicate exactly what they ate and drank in the 3 days prior to taking the poop sample. Why do we actually do this (as it is, after all, an extra administrative step in the process)?

• InnerBuddies also has the functionality to provide food diary advice. Here, our technology platform provides very practical advice on each item in your food diary. So that it is very transparent to clients what they should change in their regular diet. After all, small changes can already have a very big impact. This advice is packed with knowledge and experience from our dietician team who have already carried out this process on thousands of patients and clients.
• All the data gathered from the food diary is also correlated with the bacterial population we eventually find in your own gut flora sample. By training A.I. models on the correlation between all completed nutrition diaries and the output of all bacteria/bacterial function counts, this A.I. model knows, based on big data, exactly which nutritional ingredients has the right impact on which specific bacteria/bacterial function. This allows us to give each individual customer super detailed advice, which is based on the collective data of all our customers.

7 - A.I. techniques that help you get very personalized ingredient advice, based on the big data of all our clients.

Most scientific publications on the impact between diet and bacterial population are at a general level (e.g. on following the Mediterranean diet or a vegetarian diet). So with the data in InnerBuddies’ database, we can make the advice much more specific, accurate and transparent. A form of ‘citizen science’ in which each client is thus not only helped at an individual level but also provides data in which the overall system becomes even better, more accurate and specific.

InnerBuddies is also active in other countries where we add specific local ingredients to our database, allowing us to also “surprise” clients with tips around ingredients that are lesser known but can have a big impact on their specific gut microbiome.

Most people are familiar with the general nutrition advice, which includes vegetables, fruits, and fibres. But there are obviously big differences in how different vegetables, fruits and fibres work. At the same time, “personalized nutrition” is a major trend in science. Scientists have figured out that personalized nutrition advice works better with people and is more effective than general nutrition advice. This is because people can react differently to certain foods. InnerBuddies therefore focuses on very personalized nutrition advice, tailored specifically to your situation and your gut microbiome.

8 - Our team includes a mix of disciplines: Microbiology/Dieticians and ICT/A.I. experts

InnerBuddies' team is unique in that it is combining 3 different disciplines that normally don’t work together much. Microbiology which is about everything that goes on in the labs. This is the basis that most gut flora testing providers do have in-house. But InnerBuddies also adds nutritional knowledge (via dieticians) and ICT knowledge (via artificial intelligence).

9 - We are a spin-off of Maastricht University and we attach great importance to ensuring that our advice is scientifically ‘correct’

InnerBuddies is not a company very much focused on “sales and marketing”. We are primarily a spin-off from Maastricht University and therefore feel it is important that everything we launch is scientifically sound. That seems like a very simple marketing statement, but we have a “professor” on our team who literally has to approve everything before it is included in our platform. Not just the results, but also the underlying calculations and text. Why do we do this? Because there is already enough hype and untrue information in the health field and we want to stand fully behind our product.

10 - The InnerBuddies Healthy Cohort is based on structured metadata and bacterial pathways

Every gut microbiome test provider utilizes some form of "healthy cohort". This is usually a database of samples from people that are considered to be "healthy". The healthy cohort is typically expressed in terms of minimum and maximum ranges of specific bacteria. There are however two specific issues with this approach:

• Is there sufficient data to determine whether people are really healthy or not?
• We know from science that people from different countries have quite a different gut microbiome composition due to a different diet. So is the healthy cohort based on "US people", "Western European people" or "Asian people" for example?

InnerBuddies is taking a different approach:

• When InnerBuddies started operating as an entity. we "inherited" a healthy cohort of 450 people from the University of Maastricht. From the start of InnerBuddies, our platform has been using a structured survey with specific questions around the factors important for gut health. Based on this survey, InnerBuddies is able to clearly select a healthy cohort.
• Our healthy cohort is not only based on bacteria, but also on bacterial pathways. Why do we do this? Because bacterial pathways are much more stable across the population than bacteria compositions. Bacterial pathways are important biological functions, performed by bacteria, that are mostly necessary for the human species. Multiple different bacteria can however perform the same biological functions.