Dr. Annelieke Overbeeke

Former PhD student at DoME
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Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science
Division of Microbial Ecology
Djerassiplatz 1
A-1030 Vienna
Austria

Research Interests

During my Bsc/Msc Nutrition and Health, I have specialized in the relation of the gut microbiota and the immune system and how this relation is affected by nutrition. I have since developed a deep fondness for this topic.

During my master thesis I worked at the microbiology lab at the Wageningen University where I compared the growth of Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. Both bacteria are early colonizers and very little is known about the interaction between the two in the infant gut.

For my internship I went to the medical microbiology department of the UMC Groningen. Here I focused my research on one bacteria, namely Feacalibacterium prausnitzii. The aim was to deduce which vitamins increase the growth of F. prausnitzii, as an increased amount F. prausnitzii has been proven to reduce inflammation flares in Crohn’s disease.

Current project
The boundary keepers: Structure, activity, and genomic potential of intestinal mucus-associated microbial communities