Ferenc Szekeres

Innovative interventions are crucial for addressing global healthcare burdens related to obesity and mental health. Therefore, this project will explore the interplay between diet, obesity, mental health, and the gut microbiome through a 12-week digital intervention study. The primary aim is to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of a dietary intervention on weight loss and mental well-being in obese individuals, while also investigating the gut microbiome's role.

Enzymatic inhibitors that slow down the production of ROS (reactive oxygen species) have been shown to be effective in mitigating the effects of a stroke. Additional effects, such as reduced growth of cancer cells have also been detected. This area of research is very exciting as no approved drugs with similar effects are available today.

The study is a human study for healthy volunteers who for three weeks replace their usual diet with a ketogenic diet. Metabolic, microbiotic, neurobiological and clinical parameters are measured before and after the study. This means that a whole-body perspective is taken into account when it comes to health, but also the mental part as well as how the mentally status linked to the dietary change.

The scientific work that will be performed in this project is to explore new pathways of cancer treatment with particular focus on pancreatic cancer. These new ways of treatment are based on changing the functions of different signaling and metabolic pathways such as NADPH oxidase (NOX), reactive oxygen species (ROS) and metabolism which are known to be up-regulated or malfunctioning in cancer cells. By using different chemicals such as NOX inhibitors, digitoxin and ketone bodies inhibit their activity and thereby decrease the cell viability of the cancer cells. Focusing treatment on the differences between normal / cancer cells would help develop methods that inhibit cancer cells with less negative effects on normal cells.