Ylenia Heinrich Sanchez
My name is Ylenia and I am currently a PhD candidate at the Medical School Hannover, in Germany. I started my journey in science studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Spain. My main scientific motivation is to manipulate the gut microbiota in order to enhance human health. Specifically, my scientific goal is to formulate personalized nutritional interventions considering the individual gut microbiota community, as nutrition can be a relatively unexpensive tool that allows affordable treatment. Consequently, I completed my Master’s degree in Medical Translational Research at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), and studied the influence of diet and checkpoint inhibitors on the microbiota in a colorectal cancer mouse model at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). In my PhD project I study some members of the gut microbiota that release the proatherogenic metabolite Trimethylamine (TMA) under certain conditions. My aim is to decipher their ecophysiology and formulate strategies to prevent their growth to consequently diminish the development of cardiovascular diseases. Anaerobic cultivation, next generation-sequencing, flow cytometry and metabolomics are some of the techniques I use in my PhD project. In 2023, we published a paper in which we described in silico the members of the gut microbiota who produce TMA via the most recently discovered TMA-producing biochemical pathway and predicted their ecophysiology. Furthermore, I am passionate about connecting and getting students involved in science and organizing ways to further education, reasons why last year I was part of the organization committee of my PhD program’s retreat. I am also part of the PhD buddy program to integrate new international students. At the end of this year, I will defend my PhD thesis and I envision myself transitioning to a more translational approach within science as medical scientific liaison or similar, combining my scientific background and my personal soft skills.
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