The secrets of your gut and its microscopic bacteria are soon to be revealed. Yesterday South African gastroenterologist Shrish Budree left for the Massachusetts General Hospital, in the US, to do cutting-edge research on human intestinal bacteria and how they can cause disease.Budree won a R2.1-million award from the Discovery Foundation to do advanced scientific research abroad and bring his skills back to South Africa in a year's time.Sometimes called the last unstudied organ in the body, the microbiome of human bacteria is jokingly referred to as "Morgan: the microbiome organ".Budree said research at the Massachusetts hospital had shown that different combinations of good and bad bacteria were associated with a range of diseases such as obesity, malnutrition, diabetes type 1 and auto-immune disorders.Further research will study how bacteria and the immune system interact in the intestines and how the immune system is able to differentiate between good and bad bacteria and attack only the latter.Budree believes his research into gut bacteria might shed light on whether the microbiome plays a role in pneumonia, malnutrition and obesity , which are common in South Africa.In one study, the gut bacteria of twins, one of whom had kwashiorkor, were injected into mice. The mice showed the same condition as the twin whose bacteria they received.The knowledge Budree gains will be used in the Drakenstein Child Health project run from UCT, in which the gut bacteria of children are monitored to see what diseases they develop...