Out In The Open

Meet Canada's certified super-pooper

Debasri is one of a handful of people with excrement that's so excellent, she's donating it to science. Yes, she has unicorn poop.

Debasri is one of a handful of people with excrement that's so excellent, she's donating it to science.

Office humor at OpenBiome in Somerville, Mass. November 11, 2016. (Erik Jacobs/OpenBiome)

You can donate your blood, you can donate your hair, but only a very, very select few are asked to donate their… poo.

Debasri (whose last name we're protecting) has such fantastic faeces that it's in high demand for medical services like faecal transplant.

Not just anyone can donate their waste to those suffering from illnesses like C. difficile. Only three per cent make the cut, making Debasri, as her family calls her, a "super dooper pooper".

Gina Mendolia, product development associate at OpenBiome, pipettes a microbiota preparation for FMT Capsule G3 used as a treatment for C. difficile infection. (Erik Jacobs)

Debasri discovered her stool's unique power when her dog was sick and she was looking for treatment to help her pet. She came across a company called OpenBiome, which treats chronic diarrhea. After considering how that condition would affect people, she applied to be a donor. 

She was accepted and now her waste is rarely wasted.

Debasri talks to Piya about being blessed with super poo, how she delivers her donation for the greater good of others.

This story appears in the Out in the Open episode "Perfect Strangers". It originally aired on May 7, 2017.