The Gut Florists

Posted on August 30, 2024   by Microbiology Society

Supported by the Microbiology Society's Microbiology in Society Award, The Gut Florists is a microbiome-focused outreach initiative designed to educate the public on the significance of the gut microbiome and its potential impact on health. The project delivers evidence-based information in an accessible and easy-to-understand format.

Can you describe this project and where did the idea come from?

Rebecca and India volunteered with another University of Oxford, UK, lab group running an outreach stall at Glastonbury Festival focused on gene therapy in 2022. Both of their PhDs researched the role of the gut microbiome in inflammatory disease, so they spoke to festival-goers about their research. They found that they were all very interested in the gut microbiome influencing health and disease. In addition, they found that the public had been exposed to a large volume of information surrounding the gut microbiome through social media, but not all of it was evidence-backed. 

This prompted us to start "The Gut Florists"; a microbiome-based outreach project which aims to engage with the public on the importance of the gut microbiome and how it can be harnessed to influence health, by providing evidence-based information in a digestible format. To do so, we interacted with festival-goers through a variety of different activities, kindly funded by the Microbiology Society. We gave away temporary tattoos depicting Glastonbury headliners reimagined as bacteria, bacteria pom-pom keyrings, and "love your microbiome" stickers. We also quizzed the public on their opinions on the gut microbiome through a centrifuge tube voting system and collected written qualitative feedback from festival-goers. 

Was this always intended to be an outreach and educational project, if so, why?

Over the past few years, we have observed a huge increase in the amount of microbiome research being published, alongside a keen interest from the public to understand more about the gut microbiome. However, we also noticed a disconnect between what is published in academic journals and what is portrayed to the public. We therefore always intended “The Gut Florists” to be an educational outreach project, informing the public on evidence-backed research surrounding the gut microbiome. We also found that Glastonbury festival-goers are particularly interested in learning more about the gut microbiome and are also an audience we are not able to typically target through our usual outreach efforts, which mainly focus on school-age children and their parents.

What have been your main goals in creating this activity?

Our first goal as “The Gut Florists” was to understand what level of knowledge the general public currently have surrounding the gut microbiome and what they are interested in learning more about. Using this information, we formed our overarching goal of informing the public about the importance of the gut microbiome and how gut bacteria interact with us to influence our health. We have found that collecting feedback from festival-goers has been hugely informative and helpful in moulding our ideas and activities for subsequent outreach efforts. By doing this in 2023, we found that the public had several misconceptions about the microbiome and wanted access to more evidence-based research. Based on this, in 2024 we created a QR code leading to a webpage with various evidence-backed resources such as books, podcasts and news articles about the gut microbiome. 

Can you describe some memorable interactions you have had with the general public while delivering your work?

"I saw a man waiting with an empty stroller for his kid to finish getting a tattoo. I went over and said hi and asked if he knew anything about the gut microbiome, to which he responded “no”. By the end of the conversation, he was asking lots of questions and said that he really appreciated the conversation. 

Then, another one which I think was cool, was a dad with two kids that came over and challenged the kids to earn a tattoo by listening to me say something and then answer a question about what I asked. So basically, 1 tattoo per fact learned. The kids did great and earned their tattoos, one of them going to her dad saying, “Dad did you know that there are good and bad bacteria in our bodies?”. Eventually the dad also started asking a couple questions and by the end he also proposed that I ask him a question to earn his own tattoo". - Erik Bakkeren

"I had several interactions with medics - GPs especially - and a couple of dieticians/nutritionists who were keen for more research into gut microbiota impact on health and for that research to be available and accessible to them and their patients. I remember a specific quote from a GP was, "I want to be able to give the best advice to my patients about whether to use probiotics"". - Avery Robinson

Can you describe how the Microbiology Society has supported you?

In 2023 we applied for and were kindly awarded £5,000 from the Microbiology Society's "Microbiology in Society Award” which supported our Glastonbury pitch fee, our travel and sustenance for the festival and some key stall decor materials. In 2024, we applied for the Microbiology Society "Education and Outreach" grant and were kindly awarded £1,000 towards our Glastonbury festival tattoos, pom-pom consumables and part of our pitch fee. 

What's next?

Over the next year, we will apply for further funding to develop a new interactive game for the stall. The game would involve visitors making decisions that can influence gut bacteria, such as rural vs urban living, dietary changes and taking antibiotics. The game would then reveal different research that shows how the microbiome can be influenced by these factors. In addition, we would like to reach other audiences alongside Glastonbury attendees, so we have reached out to other audiences including residential care homes. 

Acknowledgements

This year the Gut Florist's team comprised of India Brough, Rebecca Jeffery, Erik Bakkeren, Ffion Hammond, Avery Robinson, and Frances Spragge. This year's stall organisation was led by India Brough. Erik Bakkeren applied for this year's Microbiology Society funding on behalf of The Gut Florists with help from Rebecca Jeffery.