Excellence by Choice postdoc in Björn Schröder's and Ulrika Westerlind's groups. Her research aims to better understand mucus function in intestinal inflammation.
Aicha is a microbiologist with a background in biochemistry. She holds a PhD in biology from the University of Sfax-Tunisia and the University of Paris-Saclay-France.
Her PhD project aimed to investigate the contribution of distinct luminal proteases from the gut microbiome to the overall proteolytic activity in the gut and their role in intestinal homeostasis.
During her thesis, Aicha contributed to identifying key proteolytic gut microbes and determining species-specific patterns of occurrence between healthy and IBD patients. Key achievements included an overview of the proteolytic repertoire across different gut species, the biochemical characterization of select gut serine microbial proteases, and the in vivo validation of the effects.
Following her PhD, Aicha turned to scientific project management, joining two European Coordination Support Actions, Human Microbiome Action, and Microbiome Support, which cover the microbiome in a very broad sense.
Her current 'Excellence of Choise' postdoctoral research is in UCMR PIs Björn Schröder lab and Ulrika Westerlind lab to better grasp the close relationship between host and gut microbes. In this research, Aicha will investigate how gut bacteria can degrade the intestinal mucosal barrier. She will specifically focus on the protective mucus layer, which is known to be defective in IBD.