Tom Van de Wiele

The core expertise of my research group at the Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET) is the development of enabling in vitro technologies that mimic the human digestive tract. Model systems such as M-SHIME (a mucosa containing dynamic gut model) are used to generate mechanistic insights in nutrition – microbiome – health interactions and thereby complement human in vivo observations.  This allows studying how the microbiome modulates human health by converting dietary substrates, establishing colonization resistance or eliciting immune modulatory effects. These models allow the screening of a wide variety of functional foods and/or feeds, nutraceuticals and candidate drugs prior to entering the stage of in vivo trials.