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Project

The Human Gut Virome in Health and Disease.

The research program will use a recently in-house optimized protocol to investigate the viral component of the microbiome, the virome, in a semi-quantitative way for multiple biological samples using next generation sequencing technology. This research program consists of several projects including: 1) the recruitment dynamics of viruses in the gut of healthy infants during the first year of life, and how the gut virome is affected by changes in diet, the environment, disease and the use of antibiotics; 2) the potential role of viruses in the emergence of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), or the recurrence of disease after surgery, drug therapy or fecal microbiota transplants (FMT); 3) whether or not bat virus interspecies transmission events can cause gastroenteritis in people in Western Cameroon, and 4) the potential role of viruses in colony collapse disorder during winter in Belgium, and the rest of the world. These projects will be carried out in collaboration with several partners from within or outside of the KULeuven.

Date:1 Oct 2015 →  30 Sep 2017
Keywords:viral zoonoses, insect viruses, enteric viruses, viral ecology, virus, IBD, Metagenomics, Virome
Disciplines:Microbiology, Systems biology, Laboratory medicine