A Wheelchair Prognosis, a Self-Experiment, and Viome's Microbiome Bet

Doctors gave Momo Vuyisich a 10-to-20-year window before a mysterious auto-inflammatory disease would put him in a wheelchair. Instead of accepting the prognosis, the scientist claims he cured himself through diet — and co-founded Viome, a personalized nutrition company built on RNA sequencing of the gut microbiome.

Vuyisich spent years battling worsening joint pain that physicians could not explain. He told the One Day with Jon Bier podcast that the prognosis forced his hand. "I really needed to do something about it," he said. "I read every paper in the world that was ever published on low grade inflammation and joint pain."

The claim of a self-cure deserves scrutiny. It rests entirely on anecdote, not clinical trial — a distinction Vuyisich himself does not dispute.

What did the self-experiment involve?

Vuyisich concluded his condition was dietary rather than genetic. Low-carb, vegetarian, and keto diets all failed him. Then he found research on Neu5Gc, a sugar molecule present in mammalian foods such as red meat and dairy. Humans do not naturally produce the molecule, and the research suggested it could provoke an immune response.

He cut all red meat and dairy. Within two months, he says, the improvement was dramatic; over subsequent months his symptoms disappeared. He then reintroduced meat and dairy three separate times over several years to test the theory. Each time, he says, the symptoms returned.

"My body cured itself," he says.

That is one patient, self-diagnosed and self-treated. It is not proof that eliminating these foods can cure autoimmune diseases, and no controlled study backs the personal outcome. What it produced instead was a business question: could more chronic conditions be addressed by identifying their underlying biological triggers?

How did poverty in Yugoslavia shape the founder?

Vuyisich grew up in communist Yugoslavia, where food was scarce and opportunity scarcer. "I basically lived for 20 years in crushing poverty, where every day a decision had to be made about whether we had enough money to buy food," he says.

At 20 he moved to the United States, landing in El Paso, Texas. He earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Texas, completed a PhD in biochemistry, and built a research career that took him to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The health crisis redirected that career. Vuyisich grew frustrated with a healthcare system that, in his view, offers few incentives to prevent disease before symptoms appear and is largely built to treat people once they are already sick. In 2010 he decided to focus on root causes of chronic disease. "We needed to create an organization that is 100% focused on identifying root causes of chronic diseases and figuring out a way to cure people."

What does Viome actually sell?

Over six years, Vuyisich developed technology at Los Alamos that became the foundation of Viome, which he co-founded with entrepreneur Naveen Jain. The company analyzes activity in the gut microbiome using RNA sequencing.

The distinction matters commercially. Conventional DNA-based microbiome tests identify which microorganisms are present; Viome's approach examines what those microorganisms are doing, then translates that activity into personalized dietary recommendations.

Vuyisich compares the method to aircraft maintenance, where technicians inspect thousands of components before a plane flies. "At Viome we're testing thousands of pieces of human physiology that are driving that engine and identifying upstream exactly which part is broken in you."

Whether consumers will pay for that level of analysis at scale — and whether the recommendations improve outcomes — remains the untested part of the model.

Why does he compare medicine to the 1890s?

The biggest hurdle, Vuyisich says, is education. "The vast majority of the general population and medical professionals do not understand the importance of microbes in our lives," he says. "They are absolutely required for our health."

He draws a parallel to the late 19th century, when scientists discovered that microorganisms cause infectious diseases and the medical establishment resisted. "The medical community literally rejected that. They were treating people with mercury," he says. "It took 20 years for them to accept the fact that microbes caused infectious diseases."

He hopes acceptance comes faster this time, but he is not naive about the pace. "These kinds of structural and fundamental shifts in the health care system, education system, academic system — they're going to take time. And that's our biggest challenge."

His bet is that the market, not the medical establishment, will drive adoption first.