Project: Impact of early life diet on microbiome development & later health

Acronym	EarlyMicroHealth
Duration	01/01/2016 - 30/04/2019
Project Topic	The human gut is home to a complex microbial community, so–called intestinal microbiota (IM). The microbial colonization of the newborn is essential for the development of the homeostasis of the host. Aberrancies in the early-life colonization may have long-lasting effects on host’s health; specific alterations seem to precede the development of disease conditions, including both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Thus, the early microbiota establishment has a profound effect on later well-being, therefore being the critical moment for microbiota modulation. Unfortunately, we are still far from understanding the early life factors that determine this process. Perhaps with the exception of delivery mode and breast/formulafeeding, little is known about the influence of early-life factors on the IM establishment. Moreover, some specific infants groups, such as preterm, often suffer conditions that seriously hamper this process. Therefore, developing early-life interventions to promote the establishment of a healthy microbiota may have a long-lasting effect by reducing the risk of early-life and later diseases. However, to this end we need to increase our knowledge on the microbiota establishment process and the factors determining it. This project aims at unravelling the process of IM establishment in infants and determining the early-life factors affecting it. This will be achieved by a longitudinal cohort study, evaluating the impact of early life factors on the IM, and a dietary intervention study in which the efficacy of pro/prebiotics in minimizing the impact of the these factors will be determined. Clinical and nutritional data will be collected as well as infant-growth parameters (including cognitive development). Then all data will be included into a database and the metadata will be integrated. To achieve this aim we have formed a multidisciplinary consortium comprising 5 partners from 4 European countries participating in the JPI-Microbiomics and a collaborator, and including; microbiologists, nutritionists, neonatologists, pediatricians, experts in OMICs and Next-Generation Sequencing and bioinfomaticians. The consortium provides an excellent interdisciplinary framework for achieving the project aims. The project strengthens the European Research Area and competitiveness by extending the research beyond today’s state-of-the-art, providing knowledge, tools and strains for the development and commercialization of microbiota-modulating products for newborns.
Network	JPI HDHL
Call	MICROBIOMICS

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	IPLA-CSIC	Coordinator	Spain
2	Wageningen University	Partner	Netherlands
3	University College Cork	Partner	Ireland
4	University of Madrid	Partner	Spain
5	Università degli Studi di Parma	Partner	Italy
6	Zhejiang University	Partner	China