Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NutriEV (Development of nutritional vesicles for precision diagnostics and therapeutics for metabolic diseases)
Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2025-08-31
The NutriEV project is a pioneering initiative aimed at transforming our understanding of nutrition through the study of food-derived extracellular vesicles (nutriEVs). It investigates how EVs from raw and fermented foods act as nutritional components, biosensors, and potential superfoods, focusing on their biomolecular makeup—especially glycans—and their ability to deliver nutritional cargo to cells. The project advances precision nutrition by developing non-invasive technologies like sweat-based biosensors to monitor health impacts, using nutriEVs as biomarkers to enable personalized dietary recommendations linked to metabolic health, obesity, and gut inflammation. The project also explores the complex interactions between diet, the gut microbiome, and host metabolism, assessing how nutriEVs influence gut health, immune responses, and systemic metabolism through various study models. To support this goal, the project develops biochemical tools such as antibodies and labeling systems, along with advanced organoid and animal models to track and manipulate nutriEVs. Clinical studies are conducted to evaluate nutriEVs in humans, particularly in relation to obesity and dietary interventions, with the goal of translating findings into innovative food products, diagnostics, and therapies. Finally, NutriEV fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and actively disseminates its results to scientific, clinical, and public audiences, while also strategizing for the commercialization of its outcomes. In essence, NutriEV seeks to revolutionize nutrition science by unlocking the therapeutic and diagnostic potential of food-derived EVs.
Preparation of nutritional vesicles from cloudberries and investigation of their effects in mice after oral administration. Manuscript published in 2025: Cloudberry-derived nanovesicles as stable oral drug delivery systems: gastrointestinal stability and age-related biodistribution in mice by Shanthi et al. in the journal Nanoscale describes the effect of gastrointestinal environment on cloudberry-derived vesicles. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/nr/d4nr04694c(opens in new window)
At this time we are investigating the acquisition and characterization of plant-derived nanovesicles. We will investigate the effect of the vesicles on human health in planned clinical trials. We exect to find significant results by the end of this project.