SIMBA GI Health Data Platform
Use Cases
The breadth and depth of the gastrointestinal tract’s influence on whole-body health and long-term well-being is being rapidly uncovered. The ability to collect spatially and temporally precise multi-omic samples from the GI tract in vivo can accelerate your innovation pipeline.
Here are some of the ways our first customers are working Nimble Science and integrating our SIMBA technology in their work.
Characterization of the
small intestinal micro-environment
in healthy and disease cohorts
The small intestine (SI) microbiome is increasingly implicated in both functional gastrointestinal (GI)
disorders and a wide range of systemic diseases. However, owing to limitations of traditional GI sampling
approaches, the SI remains challenging to directly access on a large scale.
Nimble Science addresses this gap with the SIMBA Capsule, an advanced capsule sampling technology
that collects endoscopic quality intestinal liquid biopsies directly from the small intestine.​
SIMBA Capsule for Bile
Acid detection & analysis
in the small intestine
Bile acids are considered one of the most important metabolites produced by the gut microbiome. The ability to detect bile acids at a primary site of their release and activity, the small intestine, is limited by lack of easy access to small intestine sampling technology that can passively and directly collect samples to detect and analyze bile acids from
a wide range of study cohorts.
Nimble Science addresses this limitation with the SIMBA Capsule, an advanced capsule sampling technology that collects endoscopic quality intestinal liquid biopsies from the small intestine, the primary site where bile acids are released and act in digestion, absorption, immune and metabolic functions, as well as interact with the small intestine microbiome.
SIMBA Capsule for analysis
of Amino Acid composition
in the small intestine
Analysis of the small intestine microenvironment and the presence of amino acids at homeostasis or under certain interventions, either food, drug or supplement, is constrained by the inability of researchers to efficiently obtain samples from the small intestine.
Nimble Science’s SIMBATM Capsule can be used to collect endoscopic quality luminal biopsies from the small intestine, a primary site for nutrient digestion and absorption, and detect free amino acid composition in this region.
Evaluation of Short- and Long-Term Microbiome Changes related to Biotic Food Interventions
The ability to assess the effectiveness of various interventions, either drug, food or supplement to modulate the gut microbiome is limited by a lack of easy access to data from the small intestine.
Nimble Science addresses this gap with the SIMBA Capsule, an advanced capsule sampling technology
that collects endoscopic quality intestinal liquid biopsies from the small intestine, a primary site for disease associated etiology, digestion, absorption, and immune functions.
Use of the SIMBA Capsule for analysis of short-chain fatty acid composition in the small intestine
Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are products of bacterial fermentation in the gut and have been established to play a key role in both health and disease states. The current understanding of the role of SCFAs is largely limited to readily accessible stool samples, leaving a gap in the knowledge of the role and composition of SCFAs in other regions of the
gastrointestinal tract. Nimble Science addresses this gap with the SIMBA Capsule, an advanced capsule sampling technology that passively and directly collects endoscopic quality intestinal liquid biopsies from the small intestine.
Shotgun metagenomic sequencing of the SIMBA Capsule to supplement feces in microbiome research
Focusing on fecal samples for shotgun metagenomic sequencing disregards the importance of the small intestine and the distinct microbiome population in this influential regions of the gastrointestinal tract, with major roles in nutrient digestion, absorption, drug metabolism and immune system activity.
The SIMBA Capsule collects endoscopic quality intestinal liquid biopsies from the small intestine. DNA collected from the SIMBA Capsule has been validated for characterization of different bacteria, virus, fungi, archaea and protist populations in this region, allowing for the microbiome research community to integrate small intestine microbiome data to compliment traditional fecal microbiome profiling.