Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences
University of Reading
PO Box 226
Whiteknights
Reading 
UK
Tel: 0118 378 8711

The key role for UREAD will be the in vitro and gut modeling studies of the LMWPs.

The Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Reading is the largest department of its kind in the UK comprising 26 Academic staff, 25 postdoctoral researchers and 56 PhD students.  Food research at University of Reading is supported by external income of around £2.5m p.a. In part this is obtained from Research Councils, Food Standards Agency and EC, but we work closely with the food industry on more applied aspects of our work.

It is renowned for its excellence in teaching and research, achieving a '5' rating in the last Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and an 'Excellent' rating in the Teaching Quality Audit (TQA).

The Department’s main research interests are gut microbiology, the role of probiotics and prebiotics in human health, in vitro fermentation studies, microbial physiology, and molecular -based detection procedures.
There is a biomolecular (culture independent) approach to gut microbial diversity studies – for example exploitation of the genetically conserved 16S rRNA molecule.

Interventions are tested in model systems that replicate different areas of the gastrointestinal tract. We are also researching (in vitro and in vivo) the impact of the microflora on certain clinical states and the rationale for dietary intervention e.g. ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, colorectal cancer, peptic ulcers, autistic spectrum disorder sufferers, the role of gut bacteria in mammalian lipid metabolism, obesity and insulin resistance.  Such expertise is critical to the current proposal where the main role of the University of Reading will be to evaluate the impact of the novel oligo and polysaccharides on the gut microflora and its activities.