The gut microbiota in coeliac disease and the effect of dietary therapy

This is a MSc by Research opportunity.

There is a strong interest in the role of gut microbiota in health and disease. Differences in the gut microbiota of patients with coeliac disease have been described but the importance of these alterations remains unknown. This project will characterise the gut microbiota of children with coeliac disease before and during treatment with gluten free diets and against healthy controls. The student will measure bacterial metabolites using Gas Chromatographic techniques and portray the microbiome using high throughput next generation sequencing. Data analysis will be carried out using advanced bioinformatics pipelines. Associations between gut microbiota characteristics and clinical parameters will be explored. This project is in the interface between clinical medicine, microbiology, nutrition and bioinformatics.

When applying, please search using the word ’microbiota’ in the programme description box and select the project title as it will appear below.

Start date is February / March 2016.