Speakers

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Nicholas A. Bokulich is an Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and the head of the Laboratory of Food Systems Biotechnology. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Davis, followed by postdoctoral research at New York University Medical Center and Northern Arizona University prior to starting his group at ETH Zurich in 2020. The Bokulich lab develops and uses computational and experimental “omics” approaches for studying microbial ecosystems at the interface of foods and human health, with the aim of establishing a predictive understanding of how complex communities develop and interact with each other and their host environment.

Session Title: How genomics can support improved starter culture selection.

Biography: Stefan Weckx is associate professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium. His research deals with the application of omics technologies, i.e. (meta)genomics and (meta)transcriptomics, and related bioinformatics analyses, on fermented food ecosystems and promising strains isolated thereof, to allow for an in-depth investigation of the microorganisms involved in view of the formulation of well-composed functional starter cultures. The fermented foods under study include cocoa, sourdough, water kefir, and lambic beers

Arno Wouters is associate professor at the Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research focuses on the extraction, characterisation and functionalisation of plant-based proteins. In the HealthFerm project, he is deputy leader of work package 2 and task leader for task 2.1.

Kristin Verbeke graduated as a pharmacist from KU Leuven, Belgium, in 1991 and obtained a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1995. In 2002, she started her own research group at the Department of Gastroenterology of the Medical Faculty of the Leuven University. Her team has developed advanced analytical techniques using mass spectrometry and stable isotope technologies to study intestinal metabolism and function in humans, including transit time, intestinal permeability, carbohydrate fermentation, protein fermentation, metabolome analysis. Her research focusses on microbial metabolism in the human colon. By designing dietary interventions that target the gut microbiota - such as prebiotics, probiotic or dietary fiber - she aims to elucidate how microbial metabolism influences host health. A key area of her research is the production, kinetics and physiological effects of short chain fatty acids, particularly their role in microbiota-gut-brain communication and on metabolic health.

Rikard Landberg is Professor of Food and Health and heads the Division of Food and Nutrition Science at Chalmers University of Technology. He is also Visiting Professor at the Wallenberg Laboratory, University of Gothenburg. His multidisciplinary research focuses on plant-based diets, bioactive food components and dietary patterns in relation to cardiometabolic disease and gut health. He has led more than 15 randomized controlled trials involving over 2,000 participants and currently coordinates large-scale personalised nutrition studies, including the SCAPIS2-HOME trial within the national SCAPIS cohort. Prof. Landberg has published over 240 peer-reviewed papers, is Editor-in-Chief of Nutrition Journal. He is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Riitta Partanen is an experienced research leader and expert in food technology, currently serving as Head of Research at Valio. She holds a DSc (Tech) in Bioprocess Engineering from the Helsinki University of Technology and the title of Docent in Food Technology at the University of Helsinki.

Her scientific background is in food materials science, with a strong focus on dairy and cereal systems. At Valio, she is responsible for overseeing the company’s research project portfolio and serves as Project Manager for Food 2.0, a flagship initiative (2024–2028) aimed at driving the sustainability transformation of the Finnish food system.

Dr. Maria Marco is a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis. She earned her PhD in Microbiology at the University of California, Berkeley and completed her postdoctoral training at Wageningen University and NIZO food research in the Netherlands. Dr. Marco started her lactic acid bacteria and gut health laboratory at the University of California, Davis in 2008 focusing on fermented foods, probiotics, and dietary modulation of the gut microbiome. Dr. Marco’s research integrates microbiome science, microbial genetics and ecology and gastrointestinal physiology to investigate microbial effects on human and animal health. She has authored more than 135 peer-reviewed publications and leads multidisciplinary research projects funded by national and international agencies. She founded the ongoing Gordon Research Conference series on Lactic Acid Bacteria. Dr. Marco is a member of the HealthFerm External Experts Panel and has held numerous other scientific advisory roles for academic, foundation, and industry programs. She is currently the President of the International Society of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) and was recently inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Rossana Coda is a university lecturer researching microbial biotechnologies for sustainable food systems. Her work focuses on harnessing microbial metabolism to enhance the nutritional value, functionality and processing performance of foods, especially plant-based products. She studies food microbiota in both traditional and novel fermentations, including strategies to produce bioactive compounds and reduce anti-nutritional factors.

Maxime Michaud is a socio-anthropologist, Research Group Leader at Institut Lyfe Research & Innovation Centre. His work focuses on social and cultural dimensions of food transitions, with mainly qualitative approaches. He is especially interested in the social conditions of the acceptance of food products and practices, and in the evolution of social relations around meals (commensality) and food in general.

Within the project Healthferm, he is deputy leader of the work package 4, focusing on consumer behaviour and acceptance of plant-based food products.

Session: Day 1 at 14:00 - Block 2: Fermented Foods, Gut Microbiota & Human Health
Title: Learnings on the health impact of plant based fermented foods in humans – can protein-fibre interaction in plant foods contribute to the health impact?

Description: Nutritious plant based option are urgently needed to partly replace animal based foods. However, the digestibility of the nutrients from plant based foods might be hindered by the plant cell structures and attached compounds. Thus, we need also innovative technologies to improve the bioavailability if nutrients from these sources. Fermentation might provide such a technology, but the scientific evidence is still scarce. Within HealthFerm project we conducted two intervention studies investigating the health impact of plant based fermented dairy and meat alternatives, and their potential to support cardiometabolic health and wellbeing. In this presentation, the main findings will be discussed.

Biography: Main expertise is within health effects of diets, foods and food components in humans in short and long term human interventions for over 25 years. Main scientific interest has been in the health effects of foods, food components and structures, especially in whole grain cereals, plant based proteins and berries from molecular level to whole body physiology, especially in their effects on inflammation, and more recently on gut microbiota and gut barrier function, and on gut-brain axis and gut-liver axis.

Prof. Paul Cotter is the Head of Food Biosciences at Teagasc (the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority), is a Principal Investigator with the large Irish Research Centres, APC Microbiome Ireland, VistaMilk and Food for Health Ireland and head of microbiology/co-founder of SeqBiome Ltd., a microbiome sequencing and bioinformatics service provider. He is a molecular microbiologist, with a particular focus on the microbiology of foods (especially fermented foods), the food systems and of humans, as well as probiotics and postbiotics. Prof. Cotter is the author of >450 peer-reviewed publications, was included in the Clarivate list of highly cited researchers for 2018-2025, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp in 2024 and is the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Microbiology.

Session: Day 1 at 14:00 - Block 2: Fermented Foods, Gut Microbiota & Human Health
Title:Learnings on the health impact of plant based fermented foods in humans – can protein-fibre interaction in plant foods contribute to the health impact?

Description: Alterations in the gut microbiota have been linked to various pathologies, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes to cancer. Although large numbers of clinical studies aiming at microbiome-based disease markers and targets are currently being performed, we are remain limited in our basic understanding about the normal variability and functioning of the human intestinal microbiota – and how to convert this knowledge in effective modulation strategies. Here, I will present our work in cross-sectional and longitudinal population cohorts investigating the variability of the microbiome and its relation with host physiology, diet and life habits. I will cover observational and interventional clinical studies that explore the potential of microbiome profiling as (companion) diagnostics. Finally, I show how a combination of human intervention trials and in vitro microbiology allow breaking up the microbiome black box and open up the path towards targeted microbiota modulation.

Biography: Prof. Jeroen Raes (m) is full professor at the KU Leuven Rega Institute and group leader and vice director at the VIB Center for Microbiology and VIB.AI. His group consists of ±30 scientists, with expertise in bioinformatics, systems biology, clinical research and microbiology. He has a substantial track record in microbiome research and has been pioneering the analysis and integration of meta-omics data with environmental, clinical, host omics and dietary data. He was involved in the FP7 MetaHIT and NIH Human Microbiome Project (the latter as only European partner), which laid the foundations for the human microbiome field as it is today. His lab combines human intervention studies, bioinformatics/AI and in vitro microbiome studies to study the functioning of the gut microbial ecosystem in health and disease (a.o. IBD, cancer, IBS and depression) and develops novel approaches and tools for microbiome diagnostics and modulation. Jeroen Raes coordinates the Flemish Gut Flora project, a large-scale microbiome- focused population cohort in Belgium. He has received multiple awards and recognitions, among which a selection as FWO Odysseus Fellow, a Francqui Chair and selection for Cell journal’s “40 under 40” promising young scientists. His 2011 paper in Nature was selected by Science as part of their “Top 10 breakthroughs of the year 2011”.

Jeroen Raes has published >300 papers in top ranking journals such as Science (8), Nature (16), Cell (5), Nature Medicine (3), Nature Biotechnology (4), Nature Microbiology (10), Nature Aging (1), Nature Reviews Microbiology (5) and Gut (17). He has an h-factor of 128 and his work has been cited > 135.000 times (Google Scholar).