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Interview: Microbiome and its relation with disease is the perfect topic for me

This is an interview with a PhD student of the Complex Systems & Metagenomics projects in a series of background articles. Keep following this website for the next interview in this series.


Interview with Quinten Ducarmon, PhD student of the project ‘Mechanisms of microbiota-mediated defence against various infectious diseases’.

‘I have been curious about the human body since a young age. And especially in why some people fall ill, while others do not. During my education I learned a lot about human health and disease, but something was still missing. After my master MSc internship at the department of Microbiology & Systems Biology at TNO, I knew that I wanted to continue in the field of microbiome research. Its intriguing relationship with many different diseases and even with effectiveness in response to therapy is what makes this topic perfect for me.’

‘Microbiome research is booming, but this has not yet led to a lot of implementations for improved clinical outcome. With my research I hope to identify microbes that can subsequently be used for further in vitro and in vivo studies, with the ultimate aim of using these for improved clinical outcome of disease treatment, or even prevention of disease altogether.’

‘I very much enjoy the working environment at the LUMC Center for Microbiome Analyses and Therapeutics (CMAT), with equally enthusiastic people as myself. The fact that we have projects with many different departments, ranging from cancer to infectious diseases to psychiatric disease, perfectly fits my broad interest in human health. My PhD project started in January 2018 and we already have several promising results. First, several microbes have been identified which may be associated with C. difficile colonization and/or infection. In line with this, I am writing a review on how the gut microbiota can mediate colonization resistance against enteric pathogens. Lastly, for now, is that we are optimizing the microbiome workflow, from sampling to the choice of a bioinformatics pipeline.’

PhD project: Mechanisms of microbiota-mediated defence against various infectious diseases.