Awarded Projects
This page highlights the projects supported through our funding schemes, including fellowships, flexible funds, mobility awards, and engagement and communication awards. Together, these opportunities enable innovative research, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and strengthen connections across the wider community.
Fellowship awards announced to advance gut–immune–brain axis research
July 2026
The UK GIBA Network+ is delighted to announce this summer’s recipients of its Fellowship funding programme, supporting innovative early-career researchers whose work will accelerate understanding of the complex interactions between the gut, immune system and brain.
Following a competitive funding call, two outstanding researchers have been awarded GIBA Network+ Fellowships for projects that address major challenges in human health, from neurodegenerative disease to disorders of the gut–brain axis.
Investigating the role of gut bacteria in neurodegeneration
Dr Rebecca Price from the University of Liverpool has been awarded a Fellowship for her project, Defining the role of bacterial amyloid in neurodegeneration.
Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s affect millions of people worldwide, but scientists are still uncovering what causes these conditions to develop. Growing evidence suggests that the gut may play an important role. Many gut bacteria produce proteins called functional amyloids, which share structural similarities with the harmful protein clumps found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
This fellowship will investigate whether bacterial amyloids can trigger or worsen the build-up of disease-related proteins and influence inflammation in the gut. By combining advanced structural biology, laboratory studies and animal models, the research will examine how four common bacterial amyloids interact with the proteins linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The findings will help determine whether gut bacteria contribute to neurodegeneration and identify new ways to block these harmful interactions. Ultimately, this work could open up new opportunities for preventing or treating neurodegenerative diseases through the gut–brain connection.
Dr Price said: “I’m delighted to have been awarded a GIBA Network+ Fellowship. Bacterial amyloids have been linked to neurodegeneration for over a decade, but the mechanisms behind this connection remain poorly understood.
“This Fellowship gives me the opportunity to bring together an interdisciplinary program to answer this question and open up new opportunities for therapeutic intervention.”
Developing new tools to decode the gut–immune–brain axis
Dr Alvaro Castano-Medina from the University of Cambridge has been awarded a Fellowship for his project, Bioelectronic Decoding of the Gut-Immune-Brain-Axis.
Disorders involving communication between the gut and brain, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Parkinson’s disease and autism, affect millions of people worldwide. A key player in this connection is the enteric nervous system (ENS) – a complex network of neurons and glial cells in the gut often called the “second brain”. Despite its importance, scientists still know very little about how ENS cells communicate in real time because there are no tools capable of monitoring their activity directly in the living gut.
This fellowship will develop a flexible bioelectronic sensor that can record electrical signals from ENS cells while also tracking gut movements in freely moving mice. Using cutting-edge bioengineering and artificial intelligence, the research will create the first detailed maps of
ENS activity in health and disease. By revealing how the ENS respond to microbes, inflammation and signals from the brain, this work could lead to earlier diagnosis, more personalised treatments and new bioelectronic therapies for a wide range of gut-brain disorders.
Dr Castano-Medina said: “I am honoured to receive this fellowship and excited by what it makes possible.
“The gut’s nervous system remains poorly understood at the functional level because we do not have the tools to see it working in real time. My hope is that this research contributes to a fundamental new understanding of how the enteric nervous system behaves in a living animal, and translates these insights into earlier diagnosis and better treatments for the millions living with gut-brain disorders.”
Supporting the next generation of interdisciplinary research
The GIBA Network+ Fellowship scheme is designed to support talented researchers developing innovative approaches to understanding the gut–immune–brain axis and addressing major health challenges.
The newly funded projects exemplify the interdisciplinary research at the heart of the Network, bringing together expertise from microbiology, neuroscience, bioengineering, artificial intelligence and translational medicine.
By supporting pioneering research and fostering new collaborations, the GIBA Network+ aims to accelerate discovery and create new opportunities for improving the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases linked to the gut–immune–brain axis.
First wave of GIBA flexible funding awards revealed
February 2026
The UK GIBA Network+ has announced the first projects to receive funding through its Flexible Funds scheme, supporting innovative interdisciplinary research into the gut–immune–brain axis.
The inaugural awards span studies exploring how gut barrier integrity links to neurobehavioural outcomes, whether nutritional interventions can boost nervous system function after menopause, how ageing reshapes neuroimmune interactions in the gut, and whether probiotics can improve wellbeing by reducing inflammation. Together, these projects will pump-prime collaborative research that deepens mechanistic understanding, integrate novel technologies and help forge long-term partnerships across the UK research community.
Read on for more details of the four awarded projects:
Systemic integration of gut microbial modulation effects across the Gut-Immune-Brain Axis (GIBA)
- Lead applicant: Andrea Monteagudo-Mera, University of Reading
- Co-applicant:
- Antonio Riva, Foundation for Liver Research & King’s College London
- Prof Bhismadev Chakrabarti, University of Reading
This project will investigate how gut barrier integrity and immune variability relate to other components of the gut-immune-brain axis. The team will generate new systemic immunological profiles to complement and integrate neurobehavioural and cognitive (resting-state fMRI, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, behavioural measures including facial emotion recognition, motor performance and tactile sensory function), microbiome, and metabolomics data from an existing large cohort of healthy individuals. This dataset also includes subsets of participants exposed to gut microbial modulation interventions (probiotics).
This ‘systems biology’ approach is essential to gain deeper insights into the integrated GIBA mechanisms across the body, and how gut, immune and neurobehavioural processes link together.
Alpha-lactalbumin supplementation to counter serotonergic gut-brain-axis impairment after the menopause
- Lead applicant: Paul Ansdell, Northumbria University
- Co-applicant: Kirsty Hicks, Northumbria University
This project will test whether a nutritional supplement (alpha-lactalbumin, a protein powder rich in the amino acid tryptophan) can enhance nervous system function in post-menopausal women.
Researchers have previously demonstrated that the spinal cord loses excitability following the menopause, a key physiological quality underpinned by the neurotransmitter serotonin. This excitability is critical for maintaining our ability to produce force and stay independent as we move from midlife to older age. Hormone therapy can counter this decline, but not all women are eligible for or wish to use it, so non-pharmacological alternatives must be explored.
Most of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut, meaning what we consume can directly influence brain chemistry and nervous system function. In healthy young adults, this supplement has been shown to increase serotonin levels, but it has never been tested in post-menopausal women. This project will therefore investigate whether the supplement can increase serotonin levels, enhance nervous system excitability, and improve strength and coordination in this population.
Spatial transcriptomics to examine the effect of aging on neuroimmune interactions in the human intestine – a pilot study
- Lead applicant: Michael FitzPatrick, University of Oxford
- Co-applicant: Agne Antanaviciute, University of Oxford
As we age, the gut’s nervous system (called the enteric nervous system, or ENS) starts to decline.
For example, certain immune cells that normally help protect nerves switch to a more inflammatory state with age, harming nerve health. Hormone-releasing cells also become less active, reducing signals that keep gut movement normal. Changes in gut bacteria make things worse by reducing beneficial compounds that support nerve health.
To study these complex interactions, researchers are using advanced techniques that allow them to look at cells in their natural positions within tissue, rather than isolating them. This includes spatial transcriptomics, which maps gene activity in tissue slices, combined with special staining to visualise nerve structures. The goal is to create detailed maps of how nerves, immune cells, and other gut cells interact—and how these relationships change with age.
This research will start with a pilot study comparing gut tissue from younger and older people. The findings will help build a bigger project aimed at understanding how aging affects gut health and could eventually lead to new ways to keep our digestive system healthy as we grow older.
A randomised controlled trial investigating the probiotic-mediated suppression of inflammatory cytokines as a mechanism for improving wellbeing
- Lead applicant: Patricia Sanz Morales, University of Reading
- Co-applicant: Prof Philip Burnet, University of Oxford
This project will test whether lowering circulating inflammatory mediators can improve emotional wellbeing and everyday cognitive function.
This study will evaluate the effects of a multi-strain probiotic on circulating cytokines and wellbeing through a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The intervention is a probiotic selected as a safe, acceptable and scalable mechanistic probe that perturbs the gut environment without adverse clinical effects.
Researchers will use a UK-licensed, quality-controlled, preparation with a matched placebo as a standardised, well-documented tool. The primary target is pre-specified as a baseline-adjusted pro-inflammatory composite, chosen for sensitivity and reproducibility in nutrition/microbiome trials and because these axes show the most consistent links to mood and prospective risk.
Pre-registered mediation analyses will test whether immune change explains part of any improvement in wellbeing. This integrated approach strengthens inference, delivers effect sizes and standardised methods, and provides openly shared resources to de-risk a larger multicentre RCT aligned with GIBA’s mechanistic remit.
