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Clostridium difficile, often called "C. difficile" or "C. diff," is a bacterium that commonly causes inflammation of the colon and diarrhea. Risk factors for infection include antibiotic use, inflammatory bowel disease and increasing age. As many as 20% to 30% of patients who are diagnosed with C. difficile get the infection again. In some cases, C. difficile infections are fatal.

Transplanting microbes from the digestive system of a healthy person is a simple way to get a better mix of microbes into a person infected with C. difficile. Fecal microbiota therapy, also known as a stool transplant or a fecal transplant, is the process of transplanting fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a patient with C. difficile. Compared with using antibiotics, fecal microbiota therapy is effective and appears to represent good value for money for treating recurrent C. difficile infections.