EIC Pathfinder Challenge Portfolio - Precision Nutrition
The EIC Pathfinder Challenge Portfolio brings together the eight research consortia funded by the EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Precision Nutrition” call, including NutriEV, to foster collaboration, facilitate data sharing, and enhance synergies among participating teams. With a strong focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, the portfolio aims to translate research into real-world applications, maximizing societal and market impact.
The EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Precision Nutrition” is a 2023 European Innovation Council (EIC) initiative supporting research on nutrition, the gut microbiome, and glycans. It aims to develop personalized dietary guidelines that consider individual factors such as age, gender, and genetics, ultimately improving health and preventing disease.
DiBaN
Type 2 diabetes (T2D), marked by insulin resistance or low insulin, causes elevated blood glucose. Intestinal dysbiosis contributes to T2D progression and is associated with poor nutrition.
The EIC-funded DiBaN project combats dysbiosis and T2D using novel nutrients from ‘metabolically healthy’ insects to support microbiome-host metabolic balance.
It develops ex vivo platforms simulating dysbiosis and insulin resistance, overcoming nutrient testing limits. An AI-based tool will predict individual responses to nutritional interventions based on project data.
FIBRE-MATCH
The FIBRE-MATCH project aims to match dietary fibre types to gut microbiome subtypes to minimise gastrointestinal symptoms caused by metabolism of fibres.
It identifies major fibre-metabolising microbiome types in Europeans and their metabolic outputs from common dietary fibres and develops fermented microbiome-tailored fibre-rich foods.
The project develops a database on the contents of different fibres in foods and evaluates the impact of microbiota-matched dietary fibre on non-communicable disease risk markers and habitual fibre intake.
Bugs4urate
The Bugs4Urate project project explores how diet, glycans, and gut microbiota affect urate metabolism to create safer, more effective hyperuricemia treatments and prevent gout.
Gout is a painful disease caused by high blood urate, often linked to diet and metabolic imbalance. Current treatments have limitations.
Bugs4Urate introduces a precision nutrition approach using probiotics, dietary fibres, and patient stratification to reduce serum urate levels and address gout’s root causes with targeted microbiome-based strategies.
GLUCOTYPES
GLUCOTYPES is redefining how we approach type 2 diabetes prevention. By combining advanced glucose monitoring, molecular biology, and machine learning, this EIC-funded project aims to identify unique blood sugar patterns –defined as “glucotypes”– that can provide early insights into disease development and lay the foundation for personalized nutrition strategies.
Led by a multidisciplinary team from across Europe, the project combines cutting-edge science with a shared commitment to improving health.
NUTRIMMUNE
NUTRIMMUNE is a collaborative project on a European scale, aiming to define new standards for precision nutrition that takes into account individual immune profiles and symptoms.
Nutrition adapted to the individual, based on knowledge of immunology and metabolomics, is considered a promising avenue for preventing these pathologies and improving the quality of life of patients.
The origin of NUTRIMMUNE is based on the emerging need for new approaches to treat metabolic disorders (such as type 2 diabetes and obesity), the incidence of which continues to increase in Europe. The objective of the project is to address the need to better understand the interaction between nutrition and the immune system, and to develop personalized nutritional strategies capable of optimizing metabolic health.
Indeed, NUTRIMMUNE brings together academic, clinical and industrial partners from several European countries to carry out this innovative research.This project is part of the European Innovation Council Pathfinder.
InteractHoMiG
The InteractHoMiG project, a collaboration between Utrecht University and Inbiose, aims to discover novel glycosyltransferase enzymes, enable the production of previously inaccessible human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and investigate their roles in gut health.
By leveraging ex vivo simulated gut environments, advanced in vitro models, cutting-edge omics technologies, and AI-driven analytics, we seek to unravel the structure-function relationships of HMOs and their direct and indirect effects on host-microbe interactions.
The project will deliver both a wealth of research data and an expanded range of HMOs as research tools and potential therapeutics and/or preventives in human non-communicable diseases and food-related health conditions.
With deep expertise in glycoengineering, microbiology, and bioinformatics, InteractHoMiG will advance HMO research and lay the groundwork for future innovation and commercialization efforts across Europe and beyond.
Mentoring for Health
Mentoring for Health is a Horizon Europe Pathfinder project that aims to develop personalised nutrition strategies to support lung cancer patients. By combining advanced technologies like lung-on-a-chip models, molecular profiling, and AI, the project seeks to understand how specific nutrients influence cancer progression and treatment outcomes.
By integrating diverse data sets from genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, the project aims to provide personalised dietary recommendations that address the unique nutritional needs of each patient. The project’s innovations in both technology and methodology promise to revolutionise the approach to cancer care, potentially reducing the economic burden of the disease while improving the quality of life and survival rates of patients.
The project’s interdisciplinary nature, combined with its focus on digital health and precision nutrition, positions it to make substantial contributions to the broader field of non-communicable diseases, offering hope for more effective and personalised treatments in the future.
Other collaborations
FarmEVs Project
The FarmEVs project is at the forefront of sustainable agricultural innovation, leveraging plant-derived extracellular vesicles to address critical environmental challenges. Funded by the European Union through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, this groundbreaking initiative explores how naturally occurring vesicles—tiny structures released by plant cells—can serve as an eco-friendly alternative to those from mammalian sources. By developing a large-scale, vegetable-based vesicle production system using organically grown crops, FarmEVs aims to transform agricultural practices for a greener, more sustainable future. This ambitious project brings together an international consortium of eight partners from six countries, working collaboratively to revolutionize the way we approach sustainability in farming.