Bacteria donors and pharmaceutical compositions

A method for determining the health status of a potential donor of intestinal microflora, comprising the steps of:

• providing a culture vessel having adherent cancer cells under standard culture conditions;
• (ii) determining a control baseline oncolytic level by determining the number of viable cancer cells or the number of dead cancer cells in the culture vessel of (i);
• (iii) inoculating a culture vessel having adherent cancer cells under standard culture conditions with a test bacterial sample comprising intestinal aerobic bacteria derived from the potential donor;
• (iv) incubating the inoculated culture vessel of (iii) under conditions sufficient to enable lysis of the adherent cancer cells by the intestinal aerobic bacteria;
• (v) determining a test oncolytic level by determining the number of viable cancer cells or the number of dead cancer cells in the inoculated culture vessel of step (iv);
• (vi) determining for the test bacterial sample a tumor cell necrosis index (TCNI) with the equation (A−B)/A×100=C, wherein C is the tumor cell necrosis index (TCNI), A is the number of viable cancer cells in the culture vessel of step (i) without incubation with a control oncolytic bacteria as determined in step (ii), or the number of dead cancer cells in the culture vessel of step (i) after incubation with a control oncolytic bacteria as determined in step (ii);
• B is the number of viable cancer cells as determined in step (v);
• and
• (vii) determining the health status of said subject in accordance with the TCNI value determined in step (vi);
• wherein the method does not comprise removal of said adherent cancer cells from the culture vessel;
• and wherein a TCNI value in the range of 71 to 100 is indicative of said potential donor being sufficiently healthy to become a donor of intestinal microflora.