Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams: “There is increasing evidence that diet and the gut microbiota may interact to regulate the immune system, and how the body responds to infection. Disturbances in this complex relationship may result in chronic infections or autoimmune diseases.Dietary fibre promotes a healthy gut microbiota and may reduce chronic inflammation. However, we have discovered that in some contexts high levels of fibre may increase susceptibility to infection with intestinal parasites. Given that parasitic worms infect more than a billion people worldwide and represent a major public health concern, there is a pressing need to undertsand this interaction. Here, we will use mice and pigs to model the infectious process to investigate how dietary fibre changes the gut microbiota and alters the immune response.”

Andrew Williams is British with a PhD from Australia and has been associate professor at University of Copenhagen since 2017.