Madison Adamthwaite of Harvard University and Nam Than of The University of Texas at Austin have been awarded $25,000 each as part of Danone North America’s Annual Gut Microbiome, Yogurt and Probiotic Fellowship Program.
Madison Adamthwaite of Harvard University and Nam Than of The University of Texas at Austin have been awarded $25,000 each as part of Danone North America’s Annual Gut Microbiome, Yogurt and Probiotic Fellowship Program.
Than’s research is said to have the potential to be ground-breaking in that it may help us understand how next-generation probiotics (NGPs) play a role in maintaining gut homeostasis and prevent disease. The project will leverage so-called ‘gut-on-a-chip’ – a microengineered system designed to emulate the structure, function and physiology of the human gut – to study the effects of NGPs on intestinal epithelial health. According to Miguel Freitas, PhD, vice-president of health and scientific affairs at Danone North America, this technique could eventually allow Danone to select specific NGPs that may offer additional health benefits to consumers, such as maintaining gut homeostasis or preventing disease formation.
Meanwhile, Adamthwaite’s project will identify the molecular mechanisms by which microbiome-derived metabolites alter health, with a particular focus on gallic acid – a metabolite shown to protect from cardiovascular events. One of the project’s goals will be to develop a probiotic that’s capable of gallic acid overproduction and use this to enrich yogurt.
“Danone’s mission to bring health through food to as many people as possible and a large part of that is ensuring our products are comprised of ingredients that offer proven benefits, such as inclusion of certain probiotics, so it is very important to us to stay at the forefront of research,” Freitas told DairyReporter.
He added that a particular focus for the company would be to investigate how nutrition can play a part in preventing disruption of the microbiota, instead of simply coming up with solutions to tackle the signs of existing dysbiosis. “While there is an increased effort towards designing microbiota-targeting therapies aiming to restore the microbiota of diseased patients, there is a lack of approaches designed to prevent the disruption of the symbiosis between humans and its microbial symbionts in healthy individuals,” Freitas told us. “This is where nutrition can have an important role, which also translates in opportunities for food companies.”
The Danone Fellowship Grant was established in 2010 to provide funding for novel studies of yogurt, probiotics, and the gut microbiome. Winners are chosen based on the quality of their proposals, faculty recommendations, and each of their studies’ value to human health and wellness by a panel of judges with expertise in the field. This year’s winners stood out from amongst ‘many high-caliber proposals’, we were told, and the review process was ‘challenging’ due to the number of quality applications. “Ultimately, Nam and Madison’s proposals were chosen as they were thorough, well-executed and their research aims to prevent illness and improve health outcomes,” Freitas concluded.
Reacting to being selected to receive funding from Danone North America, Adamthwaite said: “It is an incredible opportunity to be a recipient of the 2022-2023 Danone Fellowship Grant. Receiving this fellowship provides support for my research endeavors that are particularly focused on studying the vast array of metabolites produced by the gut microbiome.”
Than added that the grant funding was both ‘an honorable accomplishment and an important milestone’. “I am looking forward to pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the field of probiotics through this grant,” said Than. “I am excited about completing this research proposal as it will provide actionable biomedical knowledge for NGP development that could make a meaningful impact on human health.”
Legal notice about Intellectual Property in digital contents. All information contained in these pages that is NOT owned by eDairy News and is NOT considered “public domain” by legal regulations, are registered trademarks of their respective owners and recognized by our company as such. The publication on the eDairy News website is made for the purpose of gathering information, respecting the rules contained in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; in Law 11.723 and other applicable rules. Any claim arising from the information contained in the eDairy News website shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the Ordinary Courts of the First Judicial District of the Province of Córdoba, Argentina, with seat in the City of Córdoba, excluding any other jurisdiction, including the Federal.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
eDairy News Spanish
eDairy News PORTUGUESE
The most visited dairy news website in the world.
