Expertise

Metagenomics;

Primære forskningsområder

Infectious diseases; Immune deficiency;

Aktuel forskning

The overall aim of PERSIMUNE, Centre of Excellence, is to identify a common pattern of undiscovered risk factors, explaining the known variation in risk of infectious complications in immunocompromised patients. This known variation suggests that individual pre-existing host factors may either protect and/or excessively harm the host from changes to their immune system. The focus of my research is to assess whether the gut microbiome can, in part, explain this variation among patients undergoing/initiating chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation, organ transplantation or antiretroviral therapy. These patient groups have a known an exact timing of immunological impairment (i.e. the start of immune suppressive treatment) and/or the reversal of such. This serves as a basic research model to study the influence of immunosuppression in relation to both the intra- and inter-individual variation in the composition of the gut microbiome, and how this variation is associated with subsequent clinically relevant outcomes. This research will hopefully allow for a better basic understanding of pathophysiological factors, and a rationale for subsequent studies to reduce the risk of infectious complications in these patient groups.

Mulige interessekonflikter

None.

PhD salary funded by the Lundbeck Foundation.