“You can learn something both ways”

With a background in medical biotechnology and years of experience in clinical research, she describes herself as working “a bit on the edge” of the consortium.

“I’ve actually worked in the clinical world for most of my career,” she explains, referring to roles that included COVID-19 sequencing and collaborations between hospitals and universities. Today, as a PhD student in the nutrition pillar, her work focuses less on pigs—and more on people.

She studies patients with ulcerative colitis as a natural model of gut inflammation. “The inflammation they have is something we often try to induce in pigs,” she says. “So the idea was to ask—are there similarities? And can it go the other way?”

Her approach challenges the typical one-way translation from animal models to humans. “It’s expensive and ethically demanding to induce inflammation in pigs. If there are natural models out there, it’s worth looking at them.”

Capturing the Shift

At the heart of her research is the gut microbiome and how it changes during disease. By taking samples along the intestine, she studies the transition from healthy to inflamed tissue within the same patient.

“What has really motivated me is capturing that shift,” she says. “Seeing whether there’s a difference depending on whether the tissue is inflamed or not.”

Using advanced sequencing methods, she goes beyond simply identifying bacteria. “It’s the difference between just knowing there’s E. coli—and knowing exactly which type,” she explains, highlighting how her work provides a more detailed picture of the microbiome.

Like many PhD journeys, hers didn’t follow a straight line. Patient recruitment took longer than expected, which shaped the direction of her work.

“I spent quite a lot of time optimizing pipelines while I was waiting,” she says. “So my PhD became quite method-focused—but still grounded in the biology.”

She has also worked to overcome one of the field’s key challenges: analyzing bacteria in intestinal tissue, where “there’s just not much bacterial DNA,” requiring new ways of detecting and mapping it.

The power of collaboration

Despite her clinical focus, Østergaard has been closely involved in collaborative work across PIG-PARADIGM, contributing sequencing expertise and helping connect human and animal research.

For her, one lesson stands out:
“Research isn’t something you solve on your own. You need experts from different areas.”

Her work may sit at the boundary of the consortium, but that’s exactly where it adds value—linking disciplines, models, and perspectives.

And as she sums it up: “You can learn something both ways.”