NWO Vidi Grant for Marthe Walvoort

Marthe Walvoort has been awarded a €850,000 Vidi grant by NWO for her project “Healthy sugars for a healthy gut: Synthetic strategies towards complex exopolysaccharides”.  These grants are intended for experienced researchers who have been conducting successful research for some years after gaining a PhD. Alongside the Veni and Vici grants, the Vidi grant is part of the NWO Talent Programme.

Bifidobacteria produce a unique extracellular sugarcoat containing specific polysaccharides that promote a healthy gut. Current methods to isolate the polysaccharides suffer from low yields and purities, hampering necessary structure-response studies, and ultimately the development of polysaccharide-based therapeutics. In this project, Marthe and her team will develop effective methods to make these polysaccharides in high purity for the first time, which will transform the research on probiotics. Having pure polysaccharides in hand enables our understanding of the bifidobacterial health effects on the intestine and inflammation.