NWO has awarded a Veni grant of up to 320,000 euros to 10 promising researchers from Amsterdam UMC, including APH researcher Thomaz Bastiaanssen! The laureates will be able to further develop their own research ideas over the next three years. The Veni is a personal scientific grant awarded annually. It is part of the NWO Talent Program and is aimed at researchers who have recently obtained their PhDs. In total, NWO awarded 174 Veni grants to a selection of excellent researchers.
Thomaz Bastiaanssen has received a Veni grant for his study: Examining microbiome-immuno-metabolic pathways in depressive and anxiety disorders. The microbiome influences the host brain by synthesizing and modifying metabolites that reach the blood metabolome. Numerous blood metabolites that impact mental health, including immunomodulatory compounds (e.g., histamine, butyrate, propionate, acetate), neuroactive compounds (e.g., glutamate, tryptophan, kynurenine) and neurotransmitters (e.g., GABA, dopamine, serotonin) are the product of joint human and microbial metabolic processes, (co-metabolism).
While this makes host-microbial co-metabolism a potentially attractive therapeutic target, we lack the structured biomolecular understanding necessary to develop such treatments. This project aims to uncover the precise metabolic pathways and processes where host-microbial co-metabolism takes place and to subsequently understand their role in mental health.
In this project, Thomaz will first develop a bioinformatic framework to map out and enable the analysis of joint human and microbial co-metabolism: Co-met pathways, a free, open-source resource to study joint host-microbial metabolism. Then, the co-met pathway framework will be applied to the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) cohort in Amsterdam UMC. Together, this allows for an integrated multi-omics bioinformatics analysis of the role of joint host-microbial co-metabolism in anxiety and depression.
This project is expected to uncover novel and confirm known routes through which the microbiome can affect host mental health, thus furthering our biomolecular understanding and uncovering potential therapeutic targets. The co-met pathway framework will be freely available and applicable beyond the microbiota-gut-brain axis and will enable mechanistically oriented integrated analysis in the broader host-microbiome field.