A comprehensive system for gut in vivo exploration, discovery, characterization, research, diagnostics, and treatment comprising three different ingestible capsules and their associated methodologies, is provided for medical research and patient care. The system of tools is focused on discovery of causes of gut-based illnesses, treating, and curing them. The capsules perform unique functions, and as an in vivo healthcare system, provide for sampling, testing or diagnosing gut processes as a function of the length of the gut “x” and at any point in time “t”, including simultaneous chemical substance sampling and testing, along with the associated microbes. The in vivo system allows medications or system perturbation substances delivery, in a prescribed manner to the point of interest, and the resulting substances and microbes are simultaneously sampled upstream and downstream at the exact point and time of delivery. The system provides for microbes and associated chemical substances and gut digestion processes sampling with such detail and resolution as to permit quantitative system modeling and profiling of many aspects of the GI tract over its entire length. Likewise as a system, it simplifies gut analysis and diagnosis by reducing the number of variables from thousands to a manageable number for researchers, or physicians to deliver very specific patient care. The 3-capsule system, in conjunction with research and physician applications, generates huge volumes of raw and application data of sufficient numbers to utilize any gut characterization or modeling method, including that associated with Big Data. As a system, it is an enabling technology and catalyst for new educational and research institutions, businesses, industries, and the development of new complementary technologies.
