ALT Elisa Di Stefano is a postdoctoral researcher at Prof. van Sinderen’s group at the APC Microbiome Ireland. She obtained her PhD from Wageningen University and the University of Ottawa, where she worked on human digestion and intestinal absorption of fermented plant foods and their bioactive components. She was recently awarded the INSPIRE APC-Marie Curie fellowship to work on in situ phytate degradation of iron fortified complementary foods by Bifidobacterium spp. as a novel approach to tackle iron deficiency in early life. Her current work also involves the optimization of a “mini-gut” model of human colonic epithelium to study dietary iron absorption in the presence of selected bifidobacteria.

ALT Elisabeth is a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Douwe van Sinderen’s group at the APC Microbiome. She gained a BSc in Pharmacology from the University of Edinburgh followed by an MRes and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Elisabeth’s PhD thesis explored glucose absorption in the gut and the subsequent release of incretin hormones. Her interests include nutrition and host-microbe interactions, and her current research explores this in the context of the human commensal gut bacteria, Bifidobacterium. She is happy to be back in her native Cork and enjoys sea swimming.

ALT Dr. Mathieu Thabault is a French MSCA INSPIRE postdoctoral fellow in the SysNeuro group led by Dr. Linda Katona, as part of the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis. After a BSc in Physiology and Neuroscience, he enrolled in a MSc in Neuroscience, with majors in electrophysiology and psychiatry. Mathieu obtained a PhD from the University of Poitiers (France). His PhD work, under the supervision of Dr. Laurie Galvan, focused on unravelling the evolution of motor stereotypies with aging in mouse models of autism spectrum disorders, along with anatomical, molecular and functional impairments in GABAergic transmission in the striatum. His current research at APC Microbiome Ireland aims at deciphering the networks involved in memory- and learning-related symptoms in a mouse model of schizophrenia, and the potential effect exerted by the gut microbiome on these networks.

ALT Dr. Cristina Rosell Cardona is a postdoctoral researcher in the Microbiota-Brain-Gut Axis group at APC Microbiome Ireland, working under the supervision of Professors Sarah Kittel-Schneider and Gerard Clarke. She was recently awarded the prestigious INSPIRE APC-Marie Curie Fellowship to explore the effects of microbial metabolites on depression using human-induced pluripotent stem cells. Previous research at University College Cork (UCC) was focused on investigating the impact of microbial metabolites on stress, with a particular focus on the gut-brain barriers and synaptic plasticity. She obtained her PhD at the University of Barcelona, where she investigated the preventive effects of protein supplementation on neuroinflammation and Alzheimer’s disease markers in mice. Her research interests center on the interplay between diet, gut microbiota, microbial metabolites, and their roles in gut and brain health, with a particular focus on neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.