Associate Professor Elin Org
Associate Professor. Elin Org Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu

Project description

Depression has emerged as a significant societal burden globally and the  increasing prevalence of depression has also led to an increase in the use of antidepressants. In recent years, there is accumulating evidence for a strong impact of many human-targeted drugs on the composition of the gut microbiota. In light of these studies, it has become clear that medications likely confound many microbiome-disease associations.

Our project aims to investigate the associations between the gut microbiome, depression, and antidepressants using longitudinal gut microbiome anda health data from a subset of individuals within the Estonian Microbiome (EstMB) cohor. Taking into account the history of antidepressant use allows us to explain additional inter-individual variability and provides important insights to distinguish depression-specific changes in the microbiome from antidepressant-induced changes.

Associate Professor. Elin Org

Dr. Elin Org

What will this grant bring to your research project?

The outcomes of this project will advance our understanding of the effects of drugs and disease on the gut microbiome, thus enabling the development of new hypotheses for drug-host-microbiome interactions in depression.

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