Focus of my research is on the human intestinal microbiome, its composition and its interactions with our body. My main project comes forth from the NNF grant, which aims to develop advanced microbiome therapeutics together with researchers from DTU and U. Gothenburg. In Denmark, a hormone producing E. coli nissle has been developed, which is currently being tested in animals. Here in the AMC, I will set up a randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial to test the GMO for clinical efficacy in about 20 patients.

Next to this project, I will also work on a project with bacteriophages. It is known that fecal microbiota transplantation can improve glucose handling and insulin sensitivity in patients at risk to develop type 2 diabetes. Since there is limited insight in the role of phages in the human gut microbiota and the gut virome in diabetics is unknown, we will perform phage transplantations in these patients to assess the effects on gut microbiota composition and glucose metabolism. This will be done in a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 24 patients.

As a third project, I will work on the optimization of fecal microbiota transplantations. During my research internship at the AMC, I already developed and tested encapsulated fecal microbiota, but this still has to be tested clinically. As an expansion, I will develop capsules from sterile filtered fecal microbiota to facilitate the phage transplantations. I would like to compare the encapsulated phages with the phage transplantation by nasoduodenal infusion.