Joint Centre for Probiotics Research

Plans for a UK-China Joint Centre for Probiotic Research, which will build on existing BBSRC funded collaboration between Professor Chen Wei at Jiangnan University and Professor Arjan Narbad at The Institute of Food Research, have been boosted with a  £250,000 grant from the Newton Fund and equivalent funding by Jiangnan University.

“We are very pleased that the Newton Fund has been able to support the joint centre, as it will allow us to strengthen ongoing collaboration and advance our interest in both fundamental and applied research focussing on the gut bacteria,” said Professor Narbad.

A meeting held at IFR on the Norwich Research Park marked the inauguration of the joint centre, which was attended by Professor Chen Wei, Dean of School of Food Science and Technology in Jiangnan University and his colleagues Professor Chen Yong-Quan, Dean of School of Medicine, Professor Zhang Hao and Professor Mao Jian. They were joined by Zhang Si, Director of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology and Professor Richard Mithen, Head of IFR’s Food and Health Research Programme.

Professor Wei commented ‘the joint research via Newton Fund will accelerate our multidisciplinary efforts on probiotics but will also allow development of further collaborations in Food Research that is  strategically relevant to both IFR and Jiangnan University’.

The joint centre will be based both in IFR and in the planned National Engineering Research Center for functional foods in Jiangnan University. It will allow the researchers to work together to tackle challenges facing both China and the UK in the probiotic arena, and joint research projects are planned with funding from both Chinese and UK sources.

The collaborative working is already bearing fruit with several joint papers already published, the latest* describing the development of a probiotic to alleviate the symptoms of metal toxicity, specifically aluminium.

Other collaborative projects are looking at developing probiotics to help counter the issue of antimicrobial resistance, a serious issue for China, the UK and the whole world.