The Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) is a public research institute where researchers study complex issues related to human health, including infectious diseases, immune system disorders, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, population health. They've also hit on a new way of communicating their findings to the public. 

While the findings of LIH researchers are receive international recogntion in specialist journals, their highly technical nature makes the understanding of what goes on behind the walls of the institute difficult for an untrained audience, an issue the Institute says it wishes to address. 

"We are committed to making LIH research projects accessible to professionals, but also to the general public,” said Dr. Catherine Larue, CEO. 

It is with this in mind that the institute chose to explain the result of one of the research projects of the Department of Infection and Immunity in a playful way - by putting our microbiota, the bacteria that inhabit us, under the spotlight with modelling clay.

A little creativity, direction and lighting allow researchers to explain, simply and in a playful way, the research project of Dr. Mahesh Desai, in just three minutes. 

The subject of the video? Explain the consequences of a low-fibre diet on the activity of our intestinal microbiota. 

“This discovery is absolutely fantastic and opens up prospects for the treatment and prevention of diseases of the intestinal system," said professor Markus Ollert, director of the Department of Infection and Immunity at the LIH. 

The video of the presentation is available in French, German and English on the LIH YouTube channel, an addition to the library of materials there, and the Institute hopes to repeat the experience. 

”It is very satisfying to be able to diffuse more widely what we consider to be a major step forward in understanding the functioning of the human microbiota!" said Dr Mahesh Desai.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the University of Luxembourg (Center for Systems Biomedicine), the Washington University School of Medicine, and the University of Aix-Marseille, France, with finance from the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), INTER mobility and CORE funding, intramural funding, from the Department of Infection and Immunity, LIH, from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and By the National Institute of Health (NIH).

The results of this study were published in the scientific journal Cell.