# OPTIMISTICC (Cancer Grand Challenges microbiota team)

Source: https://onco.cc/institutions/cgc-optimisticc/  
OnCo record `cgc-optimisticc` (Institution). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

An international research team, funded in 2019 by Cancer Grand Challenges, that studies how the bacteria and other microbes in the gut are linked to bowel cancer, whether they change how well treatment works, and whether they could be targeted with vaccines or other treatments.

## Summary

OPTIMISTICC tackles the microbiota challenge, set in 2017: to improve treatment responses by manipulating the composition and status of the microbiota. It is co-led by Wendy Garrett (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) and Matthew Meyerson (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), was funded in 2019, and has members in Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, the US and the UK. Building on earlier findings by its members that enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis, pks+ Escherichia coli and Fusobacterium nucleatum are associated with colorectal cancer and precancerous lesions, the team is sequencing stool and colorectal tissue from over 17,000 people and running MICROCOSM, a prospective study aiming to recruit 2,500 patients with samples taken before and during treatment.

The team reports identifying a mutational signature caused by colibactin, the genotoxin of pks+ E. coli, found in 12 per cent of colorectal cancer genomes, with colibactin exposure able to cause APC mutations, and patients with the signature diagnosed at a younger age. It is developing antimicrobial approaches in preclinical work, including prophylactic vaccines and predatory bacteria.

## Fields

- Kind: Institution
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Also known as: OPTIMISTICC; Team OPTIMISTICC
- Tags: research-funding
- City: Boston, US
- Type: consortium
- Website: https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/optimisticc

## Notes

- Placed at Dana-Farber in Boston, the institution of one co-lead; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has no institution record.
- The colibactin and microbiome findings are the team's own account on the Cancer Grand Challenges page; the underlying papers were not resolved for this record.
- Wendy Garrett has no person record and is named but not linked.

## Sources

- Cancer Grand Challenges: OPTIMISTICC: https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/optimisticc
- Microbiota challenge: https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/challenges/active-challenges/microbiota

## Connected records

- cancers: [Colorectal cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/colorectal/)
- technologies: [Microbiome modulation to unlock immunotherapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/microbiome-modulation-io/)
- institutions: [Cancer Grand Challenges](https://onco.cc/institutions/cancer-grand-challenges/), [Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/dana-farber/)
- terms: [Colibactin](https://onco.cc/terms/colibactin/)
- people: [Matthew Meyerson](https://onco.cc/people/matthew-meyerson/)
- bottlenecks: [No one can predict who responds to immunotherapy](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-immunotherapy-response/)

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