The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Starting Grants to 478 early-stage researchers across Europe. With total funding of €761 million, these grants support excellent research in various fields, including natural sciences and engineering, life sciences, and social sciences and humanities. The support will help early-stage researchers launch their own projects, build research teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.
MetaHealth colleague (WP4) Jianbo Zhang (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam) is one of them with his research: A Neonatal anaerobic Gut-microbiome-on-a-Chip to decode bacterial colonization and infant gut T cell maturation (NeoGutChip).
The early days of life are a critical window to develop a healthy relationship with the infant gut microbiota. Because these early residents can train our naïve immune system for later challenges such as infections and allergens. Despite its importance, our understanding on this training process is limited. Therefore, there is a pressing need for an infant gut model to capture the training of beneficial microorganisms on our immune system in early life.
In NeoGutChip, Jianbo Zhang will develop a first-of-its-kind avatar of the human infant gut, an in vitro infant Gut-Microbiome-Immune-on-a-chip model. Zhang will use the model to determine the impact of dietary and early bacterial residents on the function of infant gut microbiota, the mucosal barrier, and immune cells. The aim is to identify key infant gut species and bacterial genes that drive these beneficial effects. The successful completion of NeoGutChip will offer a molecular basis to rationally “design” new interventions that directionally promote immune health in babies. Finally, the model can be further developed into a preclinical tool that can be used widely for pediatric biology and medicine.
