Research summary
In the second term for his Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, Dr. Bastien Castagner will develop an innovative, prebiotic discovery pipeline. His aim is for the pipeline to use complex glycans to rationally manipulate the composition and metabolism of the human gut microbiota. While the strategy could potentially be applied to treat numerous diseases, Castagner’s initial focus will be on increasing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, and on preventing Clostridioides difficile (commonly known as C. difficile), a potentially fatal nosocomial infection. He will also pursue developing next-generation toxin-inactivating molecules to treat C. difficile infections.