Microbial Community Composition and Dynamics in Lungs of Cystic Fibrosis Sibling Pairs

The purpose of this study is to identify all the bacterial species present in the respiratory tracts of patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), and to connect them with clinical information. Traditional culture methods of throat swab and sputum samples can only identify the most prevalent bacteria in samples, those of which there are over about 5 million bacteria per teaspoon. A recently developed method has been found to be more sensitive and can detect up to several hundred bacterial species in throat swab or sputum sample of individual CF patients.