Daniel Merkle, University of Southern Denmark.

Project title:

“Mathematical Modelling for Microbial Community Induced Metabolic Diseases (MATOMIC)”.

Project description:

The obesity pandemic in westernised countries calls for novel therapeutic approaches in order to improve the life of affected individuals and to lower the societal burden. Changes in the composition of the microbiome, i.e., the mixture of microorganisms that live in the intestine and help humans to digest food, have been linked to the disease. Therefore inducing changes in the microbiome composition poses a promising strategy for obesity treatment. The effects of such interventions are unfortunately far from being understood. The proposed project attacks this fundamental problem by a synergistic combination of advanced mathematical modelling techniques and wet-lab experimentation, which will culminate in a predictive model of how interventions affect the structure and composition of the microbiome. The efficacy of our approach will be tested for generating a lean phenotype in obese mice and will further be optimised in order to design a novel therapeutic tool for treating obesity.

Daniel Merkle is receiving a grant of DKK 46.2 million.