Daniel Figeys

Prebiotics reverse effects of anti-depressants on the gut microbiome - Quadram Institute Scientists from the University of Ottawa and Beijing Institute of Lifeomics found that SSRIs, SNRIs and Tricyclic Antidepressants, commonly prescribed anti-depressants that target the…

🆕 Anti-depressant drugs cause profound changes to the human gut microbiome, but these changes could be mitigated by prebiotics, according to a major new survey of how the microbial community in the gut responds to different therapeutic drugs 💊

@dfigeys.bsky.social
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Conceptual and methodological flaws undermine claims of a link between the gut microbiome and autism Claims that the gut microbiome causally contributes to autism regularly appear in the scientific literature and popular press. Mitchell et al. critically examine influential studies underpinning these...

Conceptual and methodological flaws undermine claims of a link between the gut microbiome and autism www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Functional redundancy matters: the more overlapping microbial functions you have, the more resilient your #microbiome. We showed a strong negative correlation between redundancy loss and increase in #antimicrobial resistance protein upon #drug treatment of microbiomes.
@quadraminstitute.bsky.social

Interestingly, #drugs for the nervous system (antidepressants/antipsychotics) stand out: #SSRI/ #SNRI/ #TCA push the gut #microbiome into alternate states, lowering functional redundancy(lower capacity to respond) and ramping up antimicrobial-resistance proteins.
@quadraminstitute.bsky.social

A landscape shot of the rooftops of Norwich, with the Cathedral in the centre. In the foreground are trees without their leaves.

1 in 5 people in the UK are estimated to be deficient in #vitaminD during winter and spring 📉

Our ViTaL-D Study aims to understand whether tomatoes biofortified through gene-editing tomatoes to be high in vitamin D leads to higher levels of active vitamin D in the blood 🍅

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From #drug cabinet → gut #microbiome: screening 312 therapeutic compounds, we mapped 4.6 million microbial protein-level responses to reveal how our drugs don’t just target us, they hit our gut microbes too.

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Systematic metaproteomics mapping reveals functional and ecological landscapes of Ex vivo human gut microbiota responses to therapeutic drugs Nature Communications - Here, the authors systematically map metaproteomic responses of ex vivo human gut microbiota to common therapeutics, identifying several drug classes inducing strong...

Interested in #drugs, #microbiome and #antibiotic resistance, then check out our paper on the effects of over 300 drugs on the gut microbiome. Exciting results as well on the role of antibiotic resistance defining how microbiomes respond to drugs.
@quadraminstitute.bsky.social

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We were delighted to welcome Sir Ian Chapman the new CEO of @ukri.org , together with BBSRC representatives, to Norwich Research Park today hear about our world leading bioscience.

Discover more about our research at the Quadram Institute
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Exposure to sugar rationing in first 1000 days after conception and long term cardiovascular outcomes: natural experiment study Objective To examine whether exposure to sugar rationing during early life is associated with a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular outcomes in adulthood. Design Natural experiment study. Settin...

Exposure to sugar early in life: a natural experiment among >63,000 @uk_biobank participants: rationing of sugar was associated with less cardiovascular risk in adulthood www.bmj.com/content/391/...

New technique to speed up the design of drugs targeting proteins in the cell membrane - Quadram Institute An team has developed a new technique that will speed up the design of drugs targeting ion channels, a type of cell membrane protein

“This study is particularly important to me as it took place during my post doc years at the @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social and it has been a source of inspiration for my current research line, as a newly appointed Early Career Fellow at the Quadram Institute."

💬 Dr Serena Monaco

Vitamin D3 concentrations are lowered by common vitamin D supplement - Quadram Institute Taking vitamin D2 might be lowering the body's levels of the more efficient form of vitamin D, vitamin D3, according to new research

“Vitamin D deficiency represents a significant public health concern, especially during the winter months with significant deficiency across the UK population."

💬 Professor Martin Warren, our Chief Scientific Officer

Maternal emulsifier consumption alters the offspring early-life microbiota and goblet cell function leading to long-lasting diseases susceptibility - Nature Communications Here, Delaroque et al. show that maternal intake of dietary emulsifiers alters offspring microbiota early in life, which, associated with perturbation of goblet cell function, promotes increased susce...

Maternal emulsifier consumption alters the offspring microbiota leading to long-lasting diseases susceptibility
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Consumption of food additives during pregnancy alters offspring gut microbiota and increases inflammatory disease risk
medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09...

This is an exciting position that will shape the direction of how we target the gut microbiome. Come join my lab at the Quadram Institute.

Interested in compound- microbiome interactions, and how they affect health? Join my lab at the Quadram Institute.

Interested in healthy aging and the microbiome? Join my lab to explore how ex vivo microbiome assays can guide personalized interventions that modulate specific microbiome-derived metabolites critical for health.

If you are UK-based and working on any aspect of microbiomes (human, plant, insect, soil, animal, ...), please do sign up to Microbiome-Net for details of networking, funding and training opportunities.

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A social card with an image of the Quadram Institute labs and the sentence "To support the development of the institute's scientific strategy and scientific leadership of the institute. Salary: Competitive, Contract length: indefinite, apply by 12 October 2025

🆕 Vacancy! We’re looking for a Chief Scientific Officer to support the development of the institute’s scientific strategy and scientific leadership of the institute.

💷 Competitive
🗓️ Apply by 12 October 2025
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Thank you @microbiomevif.bsky.social for inviting me. Very insightful questions. Looking forward to follow up.

@dfigeys.bsky.social speaks on:

"Life gut microbiome cryopreservation and assays"

@microbiotavault.bsky.social

Professor Arjan Narbad, Dr Yogesh Shouche, Professor Daniel Figeys and Professor Mark Webber

We were pleased to welcome Dr Yogesh Shouche, Director of SKAN Research Trust, to the Quadram Institute this week to discuss ongoing and future research collaborations.

Read more about our collaboration with the Bengaluru-based not-for-profit medical research trust🌏
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“Obesity affects 30% of children by Year 6,” says Dr Emma Webb, a Consultant Pediatrician at @nnuh.bsky.social

Read how Emma is working with @narbadlab.bsky.social to gather data on the gut microbiome in childhood obesity
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~1/2 of peptides initially assigned only to the Bacteroidaceae family were reassigned to specific genomes. Also peptides from proteins of unknown function correlated to those with known roles, allowing functional inference.
This will get even better as more metaproteomic results are made public.

Peptide abundance correlations in metaproteomics enhance taxonomic and functional analysis of the human gut microbiome - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes npj Biofilms and Microbiomes - Peptide abundance correlations in metaproteomics enhance taxonomic and functional analysis of the human gut microbiome

Peptides in sync.

Sun et al. analysed peptide abundance correlations across hundreds of #metaproteomic samples from drug‑treated human gut microbiomes. Correlation maps showed that peptides from the same microbial genome clustered together. Why is this interesting?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A photo of Professor Martin Warren with an image of plant based foods and the text, ""We welcome the new National Food Strategy’s focus on health. The UK currently has the shortest healthy lifespan in Western Europe and obesity rates have doubled since the 1990s. A stronger focus on the nutritional quality of food in the UK is badly needed to tackle these pressing public health challenges.”

"We welcome the new National Food Strategy’s focus on health. A stronger focus on the nutritional quality of food in the UK is badly needed to tackle pressing public health challenges.”

💬 Professor Martin Warren, our Chief Scientific Officer

Read more about our health research
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Non-antibiotics disrupt colonization resistance against enteropathogens - Nature Non-antibiotic drugs from a wide range of therapeutic classes can alter the ability of gut commensals to resist invasion by enteropathogens, a previously underappreciated side effect of such drugs.

and here is the link to the paper > www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Quadram Institute Human Studies team with the Head of UKRI

Quadram Institute Professor Daniel Figeys with PhD student Brenda Mionki talking to UKRI and BBSRC representatives

The human studies team talking to UKRI and BBSRC representatives

We were pleased to welcome @ukri.org and BBSRC to the Norwich Research Park today, which included a tour of our Clinical Research Facility Kitchen to chat about our collaborative work with the @johninnescentre.bsky.social on vitamin D 🔬

Read more about our research
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This is figure 3, which is FIB-SIMS imaging shows intracellular bioaccumulation of PFAS by E. coli ∆tolC.

The findings of a study in Nature Microbiology show the high bioaccumulation capacity of gut bacteria for PFAS, commonly known as forever chemicals. go.nature.com/4le7Svk #microbiome #medsky 🧪

“I’m delighted to announce @buscainolab.bsky.social ’s appointment as one of our new research group leaders. We look forward to Alessia joining the Quadram team in the autumn.”

💬 @dfigeys.bsky.social

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The Buscanio group gathered inside the Quadram Institute building

🆕 Professor Alessia Buscaino @buscainolab.bsky.social to join the Quadram Institute leading research focused on fungi and their role in food and health 🔬

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Salmonella cases are at ten-year high in England – here’s what you can do to keep yourself safe There was a 17% increase in cases observed from 2023 to 2024 in the UK.

🆕 Salmonella cases are at ten-year high in England – here’s what you can do to keep yourself safe 🦠

📰 Our Research Group Leader @drrobkingsley.bsky.social explains the science of Salmonella in the @uk.theconversation.com ⤵️