Global Grants for Gut Health 9: Gut Microbiome–Brain Mechanisms

Global Grants for Gut Health 9: Gut Microbiome–Brain Mechanisms is sponsored by Yakult and Nature Portfolio. This competitive grant program supports investigator-initiated research into the human gut microbiota.

### **Mechanisms of gut-barrier integrity to be explored in study of UK twins**[](https://www. nature. com/articles/d42473-025-00145-3) _Reader in Computational Medicine / King’s College London, UK_ Mario Falchi and his team will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to examine how diet modulates gut-barrier integrity and immunity in a cohort of twins.

_... Further details will follow. _ ### **Could traditional African diets counter gut-barrier damage?

**[](https://www. nature. com/articles/d42473-025-00142-6) _Senior Health Research Scientist / Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute, Tanzania_ Vesla Kullaya and her team will use their Global Grants for Gut Health to examine the influence of shifting from rural to urban diets on gut health, building on previous work linking diet to inflammation in the Tanzanian population.

_... Further details will follow. _ ### **Exploring the impact of diet on the gut microbiota and the ageing brain**[](https://www.

nature. com/articles/d42473-025-00146-2) _Senior Researcher / Institute of Biomedical Technologies – National Research Council, Italy_ Federica Prinelli will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to examine how dietary and gut metabolites may influence gut-barrier integrity, cognition and brain health as we age. _...

Further details will follow.

_ The three grantees from the 2024–2025 cycle will present their research at **IHMC 2026 Seoul** at the date and time below: ### **Viral gut components could influence IBD flare-ups in children** _Director of Reproductive& Perinatal Health Division; Head of the Microbiome and Biomarkers Discovery Lab / Sidra Medicine, Qatar_ Souhaila Al Khodor and her team will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to examine the role of the gut virome in children with inflammatory bowel disease.

### **Exploring how human cells interact with bacteriophages in the gut** _Associate Professor / Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University in St. Louis of Medicine, USA_ Megan Baldridge and her team will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to examine which human proteins interact with bacteriophage viruses in the gut, and how this process might trigger inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease.

### **The hidden role of gut fungi in neurodegenerative diseases** _Assistant Professor / Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK_ Virginia Pedicord and her team will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to explore how fungal components of the gut microbiome may play a role in the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia.

### **Exploring the role of the gut microbiome in long COVID in young people** _Chief of Clinical Microbiome Unit / National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, USA_ Suchitra Hourigan will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to examine gut microbiome changes in children and young adults with long COVID as well as attempt to pinpoint novel therapeutic targets for the condition.

### **Fermentable fibre may help to relieve long-COVID symptoms** _Senior Research Dietitian / Monash University, Australia_ Jane Varney will look at the effect of a dietary supplement containing a fermentable fibre. Individuals with long COVID lack certain bacterial species in their gut microbiota, and the subsequent ‘missing’ metabolites may exacerbate symptoms through less action on immune cells.

### **Refining the search for long-COVID biomarkers** _Assistant Professor & Cancer Research group leader / Medical University of Vienna, Austria_ Thomas Vogl and his team plan to use their Global Grant for Gut Health to identify potential biomarkers for long COVID by screening for antibodies against hundreds of thousands structures on gut microbes.

### **Revealing the unique signatures of healthy guts as we age** _Associate Professor / Institute for Systems Biology, USA_ As we age, not only does our appetite decline but our gut microbiome changes. Sean Gibbons plans to examine the unique signatures of the gut in the healthy elderly people.

**Publications related to this grant** * Microbial community-scale metabolic modelling predicts personalized short-chain fatty acid production profiles in the human gut. Quinn-Bohmann, N. , _et al.

Nat Microbiol**. **_**9**, 1700-1712 (2024) | Article * The human gut microbiome and sleep across adulthood: associations and therapeutic potential. Cavon, J.

_et al. Lett Appl Microbiol. _**78(4)**, ovaf043 (2025) | Article * Metagenomic estimation of dietary intake from human stool.

Diener, C. _et al. Nat Metab.

_**7**, 617–630 (2025) | Article * Aberrant bowel movement frequencies coincide with increased microbe-derived blood metabolites associated with reduced organ function. Johnson-Martínez, J. P.

_et al. Cell Reports Medicine,_**5(7)**, 101646 (2024) | Article ### **Could changes to our guts as we age give cancer the edge? ** _Associate Professor / Biomedical Sciences Research Center, Greece_ Vasiliki Koliaraki plans to examine how old age changes in the microbiota could in turn influence intestinal cells and in turn create the conditions ripe for carcinogenesis.

### **Unveiling the links between gut microbes and brain function** _Professor / University College Cork, Ireland_ A leading health problem for the elderly is loss of cognitive function. Paul O’Toole plans to examine how gut microbes may play a role in reducing the burden of ageing. **Publications related to this grant** * Healthy and Unhealthy Aging and the Human Microbiome.

Simbirtseva, K. Y. _et al.

Annu Rev Med. _**76**, 115-127 (2025) | Article ### **Tapping into the power of plants for the developing infant gut** _Assistant Professor / Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Duke University, USA_ How does having a diet made up of a diverse range of plant-based foods affect the gut microbiomes and health of infants? This is the question that Lawrence David intends to explore in Nicaragua using his grant.

**Publications related to this grant** * Host metabolism balances microbial regulation of bile acid signalling. Won, T. H.

_et al. Nature_**638**, 216–224 (2025) | Article ### **Discovering how malnutrition stunts children’s growth via the microbiome** _Associate Professor / Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Belguium_ How does malnutrition affect infant growth via the availability of two key dietary nutrients produced by the gut microbiome? Bryan Gonzales will use his grant to explore this question in children in Malawi.

### **Exploring bile acids produced by gut microbes** _Assistant Professor / Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, USA_ Following on from his discovery of a special set of bile acids produced by the microbiome, Robert Quinn will use his grant to explore how they affect infant health.

**Publications related to this grant** * _Baat_ Gene Knockout Alters Post-Natal Development, the Gut Microbiome, and Reveals Unusual Bile Acids in Mice. Neugebauer, K. A.

_et al. J Lipid Res. _**63(12)**, 100297 (2022) | Article00130-4/fulltext) * Bile salt hydrolase acyltransferase activity expands bile acid diversity.

Guzior, D. V. _et al.

Nature_**626**, 852-858 (2024) | Article ### **Examining the influence of the small intestine on glucose responses** _Assistant Professor / Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University, The Netherlands_ Why do different people have different blood glucose responses to the same foods?

Guido Hooiveld thinks part of the answer could lie in the small-intestine microbiota and will use his grant to explore these complex relationships.

### **Deciphering the molecular language of the small intestine** _Assistant Professor / Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, USA_ Marco Jost plans to use his grant to listen into communication between the small-intestine microbiome and host cells by using organoids of the small intestine.

**Publications related to this grant** * Maximizing CRISPRi efficacy and accessibility with dual-sgRNA libraries and optimal effectors. Replogle, J. M _.

et al. eLife_**11**, e8185. (2022) | Article ### **A pioneering microbiome model for the small intestine** _Co-Director of the Microbiome Program_ _/ Mayo Clinic, USA_ After creating the first humanized mouse model of the small intestine, Purna Kashyap will use his grant to explore links between the small-intestine microbiome and gastrointestinal disorders.

**Publications related to this grant** * Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in chronic liver disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies. Shah, A. _et al.

eClinical Medicine,_**80**, 103024 (2025) | Article * Prevalence of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in intestinal failure syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Shah, A. _et al, J Gastroen Hepatol_.

**39(11)**, 2308-2318 (2024) | Article ### **Functionally characterizing IBD dysbiosis and harnessing gut bioactives to suppress IL-23 driven inflammation** _Associate Professor /_ _Mater Research University of Queensalnd_ _, Australia_ Jakob's grant will explore how bacteria in the gut can produce immunomodulatory molecules that affect a specific inflammatory pathway: the IL-23 pathway.

The team hope to identify how gut bacteria target that pathway and how the status quo might be disturbed in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

### **Role of gut commensal protists in immune-mediated food sensitivities** _Assistant Professor / Department of Immunology, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA_ This project will study how specific gut commensal microbes promote oral tolerance and protect from loss of oral tolerance which will provide the basis for microbe-based therapies to prevent the development food allergies and celiac disease.

**Publications related to this grant** * The gut protist _Tritrichomonas arnold_ restrains virus-mediated loss of oral tolerance by modulating dietary antigen-presenting dendritic cells. Medina S. L.

_et al. Immunity_**56(8)**, 1862 - 1875. e9 (2023) | Article ### **Deciphering human antibody repertoires against the microbiome in health and disease** _Professor / Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel_ Computational biologist Eran Segal will use his Global Grant for Gut Health to examine how the microbiome and immune system interact, and how it can go awry.

### _**In vivo**_**long term evolution of a commensal in the gut microbiota** _Deputy Director / Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine, Portugal_ The project's objectives are focused on the overall composition of the gut microbiome, biologist Isabel Gordo will use her grant to explore t he evolutionary path of one common gut bacterium, _Escherichia coli_, inside living animals.

**Publications related to this grant** * The Landscape of Adaptive Evolution of a Gut Commensal Bacteria in Aging Mice. Barreto, H. C.

_et al. Curr Biol,_**30(6)**, 1102 - 1109. e5 (2020) |Article * Shared Evolutionary Path in Social Microbiomes.

Frazãok N. _et al. Mol Biol Evol,_**40(7)**, (2023) | Article * Host lung microbiota promotes malaria-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Mukherjee, D. _et al.

Nat Commun_**13,** 3747 | Article ### **Drug-gut microbiota interactions: developing a pathway to personalized medicine in psychiatry** _Professor / University College Cork, Ireland_ The project's objectives are to determine the impact of clinically diagnosed depression on microbial drug metabolism; to identify whether depression-associated dysbiosis affects host drug metabolism and drug pharmacokinetics in a humanized rat model of depression; and to develop a Physiologically based Pharmacokinetic (PbPK) model incorporating a microbiome-mediated drug metabolism compartment for predicting drug pharmacokinetics in patients.

**Publications related to this grant** * The gut microbiome influences the bioavailability of olanzapine in rats. Cussotto, S. _et al.

eBioMedicine_**66**, 103307 (2021). | Article * Gut microbiome-mediated modulation of hepatic cytochrome P450 and P-glycoprotein: impact of butyrate and fructo-oligosaccharide-inulin. Walsh J .

_et al. J Pharm and Pharmacol. _**72(8),** 1072–1081(2020).

| Article ## Other grants and prizes ### Research Group Prize 2023 Yakult and Nature Porfolio extend their commitment to human gut microbiota research in 2022/2023 through The Global Grants for Gut Health, Research Group Prize. The Global Grants for Gut Health (GGGH) offer grants for research projects that advance our understanding of the human microbiota and its impact on human health.

The grants are intended to pump prime early studies that may lead to applications for larger funding from other organizations. Upon successful completion of research projects, all GGGH grantees are invited to become members of The Global Grants for Gut Health Colloquium. The GGGH panelists are also invited to join the Colloquium.

### Nature Awards Global Grants for Gut Health The Global Grants for Gut Health is a competitive programme for investigator-initiated research into the human gut microbiota, supported by Yakult and Nature Portfolio.

The Nature Awards Global Grants for Gut Health will consider proposals for one-year research projects – whether laboratory investigations or clinical studies – that advance understanding of the mechanisms by which gut microbiota have an impact on human health. * The Global Grants for Gut Health Terms & Conditions * Your US state privacy rights Top Built with**Shorthand**