Project description
Improving human gut microbiome
The human microbiome is home to a community of microorganisms. Research has shown that a diverse gut microbiome is a healthier microbiome – it makes a vital contribution to our health. Around a third of the population are experiencing gut microbial imbalance (dysbiosis). This state is characterised by altered interactions between symbiotic microbes and their host. These could result in incurable immune-mediated diseases for which current therapeutics only address symptom alleviation. The EU-funded Homo.symbiosus project plans to develop novel gut ecology-based therapeutic approaches to restore man-microbe symbiosis.
Objective
The microbiomics revolution has favoured the recognition of the gut as a true organ and the importance of man-microbes symbiosis in health and disease. Derived from a long co-evolution the latter has been challenged by numerous environmental triggers, modern lifestyles, changes in birth modalities, nutritional transition and therapeutic attitudes. A large fraction of the human population has tentatively entered a man-microbes dysbiotic state characterized by altered interactions between microbiome and host features with auto-aggravating crosstalk signals. The result is increased incidence of incurable immune-mediated diseases of modern societies that affect a third the human population on earth today and for which current therapeutics only address symptoms alleviation, rather than considering man as a holobiont.
In this context and its resulting threat for the human species, I will carry out a project geared to open a new era of individualized preventive care and novel gut ecology-based therapeutic approaches. The project will assemble insights and contributions from theoretical to experimental ecology, quantitative and functional microbiomics, preclinical work, cohort studies and clinical trials, so as to:
• Validate the concept of critical transition and alternative stable state as it applies to a shift from man-microbes symbiosis to disease-prone man-microbes dysbiosis
• Assess the potential of diet alone to promote such a shift
• Model the symbiosis-to-dysbiosis transitions and derive predictors of tipping points
• Propose counter-measures that may allow to break vicious circles and restore a balanced, health-prone, man-microbes symbiosis by concomitantly acting upon microbiome and host features
• Validate strategies to reinforce ecological robustness and restore man-microbes symbiosis
Based on a paradigm shift, the proposed work will set the grounds for future personalized preventive nutrition and clinical management considering man as a true holobiont.
Fields of science
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesevolutionary biology
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionsrevolutions
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiology
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
75007 Paris
France