Professor Debby Bogaert

Our research group studies the pathophysiology and prevention of respiratory infections and inflammation from an ecological perspective. We focus especially on the early life microbiome, and the gut and respiratory microbiome across the lifespan, exploring how microbes, environment, and the host interact and affect health and disease. We combine epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, and systems biology with mechanistic studies in the laboratory and in living systems to understand infection processes and improve health outcomes.

Group Members

Paula Lusarreta Parga, Postdoctoral student

Caitlin McIntosh, PhD student

Aisling Kenny, PhD student

Zhiheng Fang, PhD student

Nhu Le, Msc by Research student

Background

Respiratory infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in children. The respiratory and bacterial pathogens causing these infections are common colonizers of the upper respiratory tract, living mostly in full harmony with the host. The reason why in one child colonization with those pathogens is followed by disease, and in others not remains incompletely understood.

Research overview

My research group has a major focus on investigating the physiology and pathophysiology of respiratory infections and inflammation from an ecological perspective, with the ultimate goal to design new or improved treatment and preventive measures for respiratory infections in susceptible populations. To this purpose, the team uses a fully translational approach, combining epidemiological, molecular microbiological, immunological and systems biology approaches to answer their research questions. Moreover, we execute mechanistic studies in vitro and in vivo. I still have a research team in Utrecht, the Netherlands, working on several birth cohorts, and one health and public-health-related studies.

Research theme

Infection and immunity

Biographical profile

Professor Bogaert joined the Centre for Inflammation Research in September 2016. Since 2008 she worked as a physician scientist at the Department of Pediatric Immunology of the UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands, where she initiated several ecological studies of the upper respiratory tract microbiome in relation to pathogenesis and prevention of respiratory infections. A Veni and Vidi career award (NWO) and two ZonMW-Top grants led to the validation and adaptation of a metagenomic pipeline for analysis of low-density respiratory microbiota, the set-up of applied bioinformatic methods and extensive studies of environmental effects on such microbiota including mode of early life factors, antibiotics, and environmental exposures like pollutants, as well as the role of the microbiome in health outcomes. Furthermore, her team is involved in microbiome heritage from mother to child, and the effects of an unbeneficial start in life on the initial babybiome, consecutive microbiome development across body sites, and health outcomes including growth and (neurocognitive) development.

She worked from 2006 to 2008 as a postdoctoral fellow (Professor M Lipsitch and Professor R Malley, Harvard School of Public Health/Boston Children’s Hospital) where she executed in vitro and animal studies on susceptibility of infants to pneumococcal colonization and infection, with specific emphasis on host-immunity.

She obtained her PhD degree cum laude from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands (Supervisors: Professor R de Groot, Professor PWM Hermans, 1999-2004), for her studies on pathogenesis of pneumococcal infections, focusing on (molecular) epidemiology of bacterial colonization of the upper respiratory tract. Amongst others, she was one of the first to obtain epidemiological evidence for in vivo bacterial interactions occurring at the nasopharyngeal niche.

In parallel, she was also trained as a pediatrician at the Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam, obtaining her licence in 2006. She obtained her licence as Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology Specialist at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, Utrecht in 2014.

Honours and awards

• 2016 Scottish Senior Clinical Fellowship
• 2015 Dutch NWO Vidi laureate
• 2009 Dutch NWO Veni laureate
• 2006 Dutch KNAW ter meulen fund award
• 2004 NVK young investigator award

Alumni

Previous Postdoctoral scientists

• Dr. Carlos Balcazar Lopes – Research Engineer, Lund University
• Dr. Justyna Binkowska –Bioinformatics Senior Specialist, IIMCB Warsaw
• Dr. Melanie Clerc – Postdoctoral scientist, ETH Zurich
• Dr. Filipa Henderson Sousa – Postdoctoral scientist, University of Edinburgh
• Dr. Alicia Ruiz, Postdoctoral scientist, University of Grenada

Previous PhD students

• Dr. Kadi Vaher (Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Edinburgh)
• Dr. Chikondi Peno (Postdoctoral research fellow, University College London)
• Dr. Marta Reyman (Resident Dermatology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam)
• Dr. Emma de Koff (Resident Medical Microbiology, Amsterdam Medical Center)
• Dr. Wing Ho Man (Resident Paediatrics, Leiden University Medical Center)
• Dr. Wouter de Steenhuijsen Piters (Resident Medical Microbiology, Amsterdam Medical Center)
• Dr Astrid Bosch (General practitioner, Netherlands)
• Dr Cassandra Krone (Post-doctoral research fellow, University of Birmingham)
• Dr Giske Biesbroek (Paediatric trainee, Amsterdam Medical Center)
• Dr Sabine Prevaes (Paediatrician, University Medical Center, Utrecht)
• Dr Astrid Bosch (Junior Clinical Fellow in General Paediatric, Birmingham Children’s Hospital)

Previous Msc Students

• Lillian Koppensteiner – PhD student University of Edinburgh 

Other responsibilities

• Board member and executive committee member, International Society for Pneumonia and Pneumococcal Disease (ISPPD)
• Early Career Award Committee, Wellcome Trust

Collaborators

• Professor James Boardman
• Professor Jurgen Schwarze
• Professor David Dockrell
• Doctor Thamarai Schneider
• Professor Stephen Gordon
• Professor Lidwien Smit (University of Utrecht)
• Professor Mia Crampin (University of Glasgow)
• Professor Daniella Ferreira (Oxford University)
• Doctor Maaike van de Beld (Public Health Institute The Netherlands)
• Doctor Eelco Franz (Public Health Institute The Netherlands)

Publications

Funding

Scottish Funding Council, Wellcome Trust, UKRI, NWO, ZonMW