Description du projet
Améliorer le microbiome de l’intestin humain
Le microbiome humain abrite une communauté de micro-organismes. Des recherches ont révélé qu’un microbiome intestinal diversifié est un microbiome plus sain – il apporte une contribution vitale à notre santé. Environ un tiers de la population présente un déséquilibre microbien intestinal (dysbiose). Cet état est caractérisé par des interactions altérées entre les microbes symbiotiques et leur hôte. Cela pourrait entraîner des maladies incurables à médiation immunitaire pour lesquelles les thérapies actuelles se limitent à atténuer les symptômes. Le projet Homo.symbiosus financé par l’UE, prévoit de développer de nouvelles approches thérapeutiques basées sur l’écologie intestinale afin de rétablir la symbiose entre l’homme et les microbes.
Objectif
The microbiomics revolution has favoured the recognition of the gut as a true organ and the importance of man-microbes symbiosis in health and disease. Derived from a long co-evolution the latter has been challenged by numerous environmental triggers, modern lifestyles, changes in birth modalities, nutritional transition and therapeutic attitudes. A large fraction of the human population has tentatively entered a man-microbes dysbiotic state characterized by altered interactions between microbiome and host features with auto-aggravating crosstalk signals. The result is increased incidence of incurable immune-mediated diseases of modern societies that affect a third the human population on earth today and for which current therapeutics only address symptoms alleviation, rather than considering man as a holobiont.
In this context and its resulting threat for the human species, I will carry out a project geared to open a new era of individualized preventive care and novel gut ecology-based therapeutic approaches. The project will assemble insights and contributions from theoretical to experimental ecology, quantitative and functional microbiomics, preclinical work, cohort studies and clinical trials, so as to:
• Validate the concept of critical transition and alternative stable state as it applies to a shift from man-microbes symbiosis to disease-prone man-microbes dysbiosis
• Assess the potential of diet alone to promote such a shift
• Model the symbiosis-to-dysbiosis transitions and derive predictors of tipping points
• Propose counter-measures that may allow to break vicious circles and restore a balanced, health-prone, man-microbes symbiosis by concomitantly acting upon microbiome and host features
• Validate strategies to reinforce ecological robustness and restore man-microbes symbiosis
Based on a paradigm shift, the proposed work will set the grounds for future personalized preventive nutrition and clinical management considering man as a true holobiont.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesevolutionary biology
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionsrevolutions
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiology
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitution d’accueil
75007 Paris
France