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Project

MicrobLiver: Challenge Grant (MicroBLiver)

MicrobLiver is a project awarded to Prof. Torben Hanssen by the Novo Nordisk Foundation  (http://danishdiabetesacademy.dk/news/120-million-dkk-research-role-gut-microbiome-metabolic-diseases). MicrobLiver deals with the physiological characterization of the human gut microbiota-liver axis, and its role in widespread metabolic disorders including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and alcoholic liver disease.
For this project the Laboratory of Viral Metagenomics is responsible for the investigation of the virus component of the gut microbiome. The virome will be studied using a recently in-house developed metagenomics protocol (NetoVIR; http://www.nature.com/protocolexchange/protocols/4839) to study the virome in stool samples using high-throughput Illumina Next Generation Sequencing technologies. These projects will results in billions of generated sequence reads, most of which belong to known and unknown bacteriophages, in addition to eukaryotic viruses. The further analysis and characterization of these data is hampered by several factors including lack of complete, curated databases. During this project a strategy will be developed to identify and characterize these novel viruses to generate a viral genome catalogue for subsequent studies. Furthermore, multiple strategies to link identified phage to their host bacterium will be evaluated.

Date:1 Jul 2016 →  30 Jun 2022
Keywords:Virome, Microbiome, Gut-liver axis, MicroBLiver
Disciplines:Microbiology, Systems biology, Laboratory medicine