“The ability to sequence all the bacteria in our intestinal tract opened up a whole new world to understanding why certain people get sick, but not others.”
Research focus: intestinal bacteria, influence of bacterial clusters on diseases
Fernanda Paganelli is Assistant Professor Medical Microbiology at the University Medical Center Utrecht . She is also closely involved with the Utrecht Exposome Hub . Her research focuses on the emerging field of intestinal bacteria. It is only since about ten to fifteen years that scientists have been able to sequence these bacteria as a community. Fernanda Paganelli tries to find out what all these different bacteria do in the human body and in particular how different combinations or clusters of bacteria influence diseases. More insight into this can have a huge impact on the treatment of conditions such as immune diseases, cancer, diabetes, antibiotic resistance or infectious diseases.
One example on how medical interventions can permanently affect the gut microbiota is one of Fernanda’s recent work in obese patients. Together with other researchers at the Exposome Hub, she investigated the role of the microbiome on weight loss for morbidly obese patients. They studied the changes of microbial communities in the intestines in faecal samples from 45 patients who underwent a crash diet, followed by gastric reduction. Six months later it appeared that the composition of the intestinal microbiota in these patients changed permanently, and that these changes were observed within two weeks after surgery. This is probably a reflection of the adaptation of the microbiota to the changes the patients underwent. Fernanda Paganelli uses these insights within her research to find for example less invasive methods that can achieve the same lasting results.
Areas of interest:
- Intestinal microbiota
- Microbiome
- Bowel diseases and their prevention
- New treatment strategies
- Antibiotic resistance
- Gut organoids