Biography:
Anna studied nutritional science at Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen (Germany) from which she graduated with a M.Sc. in 2020. During her master's degree she undertook an 8-month research project at the Quadram Institute Bioscience in Norwich (UK), where she investigated the association between high-fat diets and TMAO-metabolism. In 2020 Anna joined the lab of Dr. Kiran Patil at the MRC Toxicology Unit. She is applying microbial and metabolomic approaches to investigate the interaction of environmental pollutants and gut bacteria, with a focus on pesticides.
Research Interests:
Our gut microbiota contributes to many aspects of host health, ranging from drug metabolism to pathogen defence. Changes in our gut microbiota composition have been associated with various diseases and altered response to therapy. As our gut microbiota composition determines its function, it is important to understand how different factors shape this composition. While diet and medications are known strong contributors to gut microbiota composition, the effect of other xenobiotics, such as environmental pollutants remain under appreciated. While xenobiotics can impact bacterial growth and metabolism, bacteria in turn can alter xenobiotic bioavailability, activity and toxicity.
My research focuses on gut bacteria interactions with environmental pollutants. I am interested in finding specific xenobiotic-strain interactions and elucidating cellular and molecular mechanisms to improve the knowledge on gut microbiota variations between individuals, enzyme promiscuity and possible host-health outcomes.
