NUTRIM Facilities

If you were asked to smell the armpit of an unknown person, you probably would not do this whereas you would say yes when asked to smell a baby. In other words, we are able to sense the different chemicals spread by an armpit or baby and can label them as either unpleasant or pleasant.

Gluten intolerance is a wide spread condition causing a variety of gastro-intestinal complaints upon the consumption of gluten. In its most severe case, one speaks of celiac disease. Besides a lifelong gluten free diet, no treatment for this disorder exists. Gluten are highly resistant to digestive breakdown in our gastro-intestinal tract, and resulting gluten peptides can trigger immunological reactions.

Muscle dysfunction, due to chronic disease (e.g. suffering from Diabetes, COPD, Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, Obesity and Frailty)  and or disuse, is an important determinant of adverse muscle skeletal loading, poor movement performance and reduced mobility in daily life.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) research: combining Human Tissue Analysis and Imaging

Developing non-invasive imaging of liver inflammation.

As the prevalence of obesity and type II diabetes rapidly increases, so does the demand for highly precise studies in the field of energy expenditure, substrate utilization and other in-vivo metabolism parameters. These studies are of the greatest interest for nutritional, pharmaceutical and other health-related metabolic research.

3D Motion Capture and Muscle-Skeletal Modelling and Systems Biology.

Proteins are the major regulators of life processes and as such they are important for the balance between health and disease. Not only do they function as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of crucial health sustaining processes in the body, but proteins also are major drug targets for medication. Altogether, protein research and proteomics applications are indispensable in the academic setting.

The Stable Isotope Research Centre (SIRC) was started in 1993 as a joint collaboration between the Maastricht University School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM) and the Academic Hospital Maastricht (azM). The aim of the SIRC is to provide analytical facilities and expertise that enables researchers of the two institutions to incorporate stable isotope techniques in nutritional, physiological and clinical studies.