Past TEP grant recipient Kozeta Miliku, MD, PhD, currently postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and a clinical science officer in the CHILD Cohort Study, received a Trainee Travel Fund (TTF) grant in 2017. While she was living in the Netherlands, Dr. Miliku’s TTF grant enabled her to travel to travel to Canada to work with colleagues at the University of Manitoba on the Canadian Healthy Infant and Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study data.

During her short-term work in Canada, Dr. Miliku gained knowledge on human milk components, especially human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). She developed new statistical skills required to link and analyze complex biological datasets with large longitudinal clinical datasets. Perhaps most importantly, she also established key relationships with mentors and collaborators with whom she still works regularly today.

Following the completion of her first TTF experience, Dr. Miliku applied for and was awarded a second TTF grant in 2019.

About her experience, Dr. Miliku said:

“This was a wonderful experience. I want to thank ISRHML for this great opportunity. Gaining experience with HMO analytical techniques and exploring important research questions in the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) field can lead to knowledge, and that can help in developing and implementing public health policies and clinical protocols in infant food allergies.”

Dr. Miliku’s TTF-enabled work contributed to the study Integrated Analysis of Human Milk Microbiota With Oligosaccharides and Fatty Acids in the CHILD Cohort, published in Frontiers in Nutrition in May 2019.  
(Link to PDF or online full-text study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2019.00058/full)