Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Child malnutrition is a serious global health issue, responsible for nearly half of the deaths in young children each year. Surprisingly, even when malnourished children are fed nutrient-rich therapeutic foods, they often do not regain normal height and weight. An intestinal disorder known as environmental enteropathy, which interferes with nutrient absorption, may be preventing malnourished children from benefiting from healthy feeding programs. This intestinal disorder is believed to result from continuous exposure to fecal bacteria in regions of poor sanitation. The human intestine harbours trillions of bacteria, collectively termed the microbiota, which help to digest foods, absorb nutrients and prevent infection. As the host and the microbiota interact with one another and digest food, they produce countless small molecules ('metabolites') with biological function in health and disease. I propose that these metabolites play an important role in environmental enteropathy. My project aims to uncover metabolites which are associated with environmental enteropathy in mice and humans, and to study their effect on cells of the mammalian intestine. I will also test whether certain metabolites can help treat the disease in a mouse model. These experiments will help us understand the molecular basis of environmental enteropathy, and may reveal molecules that would be useful in the treatment of this disease. To pursue this research in human samples, our lab is involved in a large-scale international collaboration studying environmental enteropathy in malnourished children from Madagascar and the Central African Republic. This project is extremely relevant to the unsolved problem of child malnutrition. Developing a treatment for environmental enteropathy would be a crucial advancement in the field of children's health, with the potential to reduce mortality rates and improve the development of millions of malnourished children.