Nico Boon lab

Prof. Dr. Nico Boon

Tel: +32 9 264 59 76
Email: nico.boon@ugent.be

Research topic

Our research focuses on the microbial ecology of various ecosystems including the gastrointestinal lumen. The areas of interests have been the development of molecular methods for the qualitative and quantitative description of microorganisms and investigations of microbial processes in carbon and nitrogen cycling, novel bioaugmentation strategies for xenobiotics and the bioprecipitation and application of catalytic particles. Recently, the research interests are focussed on the development of new microbial ecological theories to link the microbial community structure to functionality. The central theme of this research is to understand of the composition, functionality and the limits under which a microbial community can (optimally) perform. This strategy is called Microbial Resource Management (MRM).

Areas of expertise

Next Generation Sequencing, Fluorescent in situ Hybridisation, Real-Time PCR and Flow Cytometry for the qualitative and quantitative description of microorganisms.

Selected publications

  1. Rubbens et al., Cytometric fingerprints of gut microbiota predict Crohn's disease state.
    ISME J. 2020 Sep 2. doi: 10.1038/s41396-020-00762-4
  2. Vossen et al. Red and processed meat consumption within two different dietary patterns: Effect on the colon microbial community and volatile metabolites in pigs.
    Food Res Int. 2020 Mar;129:108793. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2019.108793
  3. Buysschaert et al. Flow cytometric fingerprinting for microbial strain discrimination and physiological characterization.
    Cytometry A. 2018 Feb;93(2):201-212. doi: 10.1002/cyto.a.23302
  4. Geirnaert et al. Butyrate-producing bacteria supplemented in vitro to Crohn's disease patient microbiota increased butyrate production and enhanced intestinal epithelial barrier integrity.
    Sci Rep. 2017 Sep 13;7(1):11450. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-11734-8
  5. Herrero et al. Dysbiosis by neutralizing commensal mediated inhibition of pathobionts.
    Sci Rep. 2016 Nov 29;6:38179. doi: 10.1038/srep38179
  6. Props et al. Absolute quantification of microbial taxon abundances.
    ISME J. 2017 Feb;11(2):584-587. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2016.117

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