Researcher receives €300,000 to study celiac disease

Polytechnic of Leiria researcher Sónia Gonçalves Pereira received a prize of 300,000 euros to study, over the next three years, the mechanisms of celiac disease, the institution of higher education announced today.

In a press release, the Polytechnic informed that the researcher from the Center for Innovation in Technologies and Health Care was awarded the Beyond Celiac Foundation Established Investigator Award 2022, to develop the project 'CeliAct(TIV) – Translocation, Inflammation and Virulence: dissecting the mechanisms of gluten-microbiota interaction in celiac disease'.

According to the same note, the 'CeliAct(TIV)' project team wants to increase knowledge about the contribution of the human microbiota in the onset and evolution of celiac disease, focusing on the mechanisms of gluten-microbiota-immunity interaction.

“In addition to looking for the specific signatures of the microbiota in celiac disease, the team intends to learn more about the impact that bacteria and their virulence can have on gluten digestion and consequent intestinal translocation and inflammation”, explained the Polytechnic of Leiria.

The project has the collaboration of Katri Lindfors, from the Celiac Disease Research Center at Tampere University (Finland), and Daniela Cipreste Vaz, as co-principal investigator.

PhD student Ana Roque, also from the Center for Innovation in Technologies and Health Care, is also part of the research team, “focusing her work on the blood microbiota of celiac disease, its virulence signatures, and participation in intestinal permeability using models organoides, with the support of the laboratory of professor gastroenterologist Alessio Fasano, at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital”.