A consortium of four Dutch academic partners (including UMC Utrecht) has received a large grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). This is an ENW-XL grant of € 3 million for research into the causes of urinary tract infections in women. Janneke van de Wijgert will lead one of the work packages that focuses on a clinical trial in women with a recurrent urinary tract infection.

Many women suffer from urinary tract infections (UTIs), and especially postmenopausal women. Even after treatment with antibiotics, the chances of the UTI returning are high. Moreover, resistance to antibiotics is increasing. UTIs have long been studied from the perspective of certain pathogens. Hoever, recent research has discovered that the pathogens involved in UTIs are more diverse than previously thought, that the urinary tract of healthy women also contains bacteria, and that the presence of some of these bacteria might actually be beneficial. In this project, a multidisciplinary group of scientists will investigate how the eco-evolutionary interactions between these microbes lead to the development of UTIs. Knowledge of these interactions may lead to new diagnostics, prevention interventions, and treatments in the future.

Multidisciplinary team

The multidisciplinary team includes microbiologists, biologists, chemists, bioinformaticians, epidemiologists, and physicians from various universities and research institutes. Lead applicant for the grant is Marjon de Vos (University of Groningen). From UMC Utrecht, Janneke van de Wijgert (professor of epidemiology of infectious and immune-mediated diseases) is work package leader. She will conduct a clinical study with the Julius Center general practitioners group led by Roderick Venekamp. Other co-applicants are: Justin van der Hooft (WUR), Marnix Medema (WUR), Celia Berkers (UU), Michael Seidl (UU), Jerry Wells (WUR) and Rampal Etienne (RUG).

Prof. Janneke van de Wijgert

NWO ENW-XL grant

Within the NWO Open Competition ENW - XL, collaborative researchers can submit research proposals for curiosity-driven, unconstrained fundamental research in the research areas of the NWO's Exact and Natural Sciences (ENW) domain and thus have the opportunity and freedom to strengthen and/or expand excellent, challenging and innovative research lines. Also on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, NWO made an extra € 65.4 million available to the various Open Competitions for untied research for 2022. Of this, € 29.8 million went to the ENW science area. With the new additional budget, more than one and a half times as many research proposals can be honored compared to the originally set budget for this round.