TU Braunschweig’s contribution to the NutriEV project and its impact on nutritional research

29 January 2025
NEWS
TU Braunschweig's contribution to the NutriEV project and its impact on nutritional research

The NutriEV project investigates the role of nutritional extracellular vesicles (nutriEVs) in gut health and metabolic regulation. By examining nutriEVs derived from raw and fermented foods, the project aims to understand their mechanisms in delivering nutritional components to cells and their impact on obesity and metabolic disorders.

This collaboration of leading institutions brings together expertise in nutrition science, microbiome research, glycan analysis, molecular biology, nanotechnology, biosensors, organoid technologies, and clinical research, ensuring a comprehensive approach to the study of nutriEVs.

Providing its expertise in phage display and antibody engineering for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes, the partner Technische Universität Braunschweig – Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, or TU Braunschweig-, will generate human antibodies for nutriEV identification. Founded in 1745 as the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, it is Germany’s oldest university of technology and a member of TU9, a network of leading German technical universities. Currently, the university has over 16,000 students and more than 3,500 employees.

The Braunschweig region hosts several prominent research organizations, including the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI), various Fraunhofer institutes, the Federal Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrtbundesamt), the National Metrology Institute (PTB), the German Culture Collections (DSMZ, analogous to the US ATCC), the Julius Kühn Institute, and the von Thünen Institute (both in agriculture). These institutions contribute to the region having one of the highest concentrations of researchers in Europe (around 4% of the population).


EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE IN EU PROJECTS

The Institute of Biochemistry, Biotechnology, and Bioinformatics at TU Braunschweig includes the Departments of Biotechnology and Medical Biotechnology, which are partners in numerous EU projects. The Department of Biotechnology, headed by Prof. Dr. Stefan Dübel, is a pioneer in antibody engineering and is one of the inventors of antibody phage display. Prof. Dr. Michael Hust leads the Department of Medical Biotechnology and serves as TU Braunschweig’s principal investigator in NutriEV. Both departments work extensively on antibody engineering and have developed one of the largest naïve antibody phage display libraries in academia (HAL9/10).

These technologies are applied in numerous projects, including:

  • Infectious diseases: European projects LWNVIVAT, focused on developing recombinant vaccines and therapeutic antibodies against West Nile virus, and ATAC for COVID-19 therapeutics.
  • CAR-T Cell development: geneTIGA, targeting new therapies for IgA nephropathy and CAR-Tregs, and also funded by the European Union.
  • Autoimmune diseases: autoimmune encephalitis research (DFG SYNABS)
  • Diagnostics: developing of diagnostic tests, e.g. for Listeria monocytogenes in food or for plant diseases (PoC DiKa project).
  • Veterinary Medicine: Research on biomarkers (e.g. by using ORFeome phage display) for bovine respiratory disease and an immune therapy for equine summer eczema, currently in clinical trials.

The departments emphasize translational research, leading to societal benefits and spin-offs such as YUMAB GmbH, specialized in the discovery and development of fully human therapeutic antibodies, and CORAT Therapeutics GmbH, focused on the development of innovative therapeutic drugs composed of fully human neutralizing antibodies against COVID-19.


TU BRAUNSCHWEIG’S ROLE IN NUTRIEV

In the NutriEV project, TU Braunschweig will be responsible for WP2 (Biochemical tools to target nutriEV functions) and will generate antibody fragments (scFv format) against extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their identified proteins. These antibodies will be developed through antibody phage display using human antibody gene libraries (HAL9/10). The antibodies will be fused with Turbo-ID, a biotinylation system, to enable the biotinylation of target receptors and cells. In WP3, these antibodies will also be utilized for the detection of EVs in sweat, and they may additionally be employed in in vivo studies. Moreover, the antibodies can be customized for specific experiments and assays (e.g., optimizing affinity, enhancing stability, incorporating different constant domains, or adding coupling domains). All constructs could also be adapted for the subsequent development of commercial EV assays.

At TU Braunschweig, Prof. Dr. Michael Hust and Ph.D. student Philip Heine are working on the project with support of Dr. Maren Schubert, an esteemed and established scientist with over 40 publications, who is an expert for recombinant protein production.


TU Braunschweig is a leading institution in research and technological development, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration across various fields, including biotechnology and engineering. Its involvement in EU projects, such as the NutriEV project, highlights its role in addressing key scientific and societal challenges. In the NutriEV project, TU Braunschweig contributes to the development of biochemical tools for understanding and utilizing extracellular vesicles (EVs) in nutrition diagnostics and therapeutics. With a history of over 270 years, the university continues to play a significant role in advancing research and technology.

In addition to the Technical University of Braunschweig, the NutriEV consortium includes the University of Oulu, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), the University of Copenhagen, and Zabala Innovation.