IOF POC ReLACT: Intranasal probiotics versus respiratory viruses

Can we guard ourselves against respiratory viruses with probiotics? In one of our follow-up projects, an innovative approach based on probiotic strains is being investigated in experimental models of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). RSV is the leading cause of severe lower respiratory tract disease in young children worldwide. One of the things we want to investigate in this project is whether probiotics can function as immunomodulatory agents that can prevent RSV-associated inflammation in the airways.

More information can be found here.

 

 

Pharmabiotics conference

On March 11th, Irina Spacova presented our work on the promising upper respiratory tract isolate Lactobacillus casei AMBR2 at Pharmabiotics 2020 in Paris. Due to our multidisciplinary team, we were able to test a probiotic nasal spray in healthy volunteers.

       

Closing meeting

On January 10th 2020, the closing meeting of the ProCure project was held at the University of Antwerp. With our fantastic team, we look forward to further develop the novel probiotic strains, processes and assays we have jointly developed in this project!

Congratulations dr. De Boeck!

November 4th 2019, Ilke De Boeck  finalised her PhD about the ‘Study of the upper respiratory tract microbiota and the potential of probiotics for the management of chronic rhinosinusitis’ with a public defence.

In this PhD project, the microbiota of the upper respiratory tract (URT) and the potential of probiotics as innovative treatment strategy for CRS was investigated. The following research questions were addressed:

  • Which insights can microbiome research provide on the potential beneficial members of the URT and how do these beneficial members associate with the pathobionts?
  • What is the importance of lactic acid bacteria in the URT?
  • Do lactobacilli have potential as URT probiotics

The PhD thesis can be found here.