I am working at Business unit Bioscience of Wageningen Plant Research. My main interest of research topics are nutritional food compounds, including food allergens, in relation to (human) health. I was involved in the Well on Wheat (WoW) project, to study whether there is an effect of wheat consumption on human health. For many years, I have been involved in research on gluten proteins from wheat and oat in relation to celiac disease within the Dutch Celiac Disease Consortium. I have been involved as an assistent coördinator within the demonstration EU-project DRIVE4EU, 'Dandelion Rubber and Inulin Valorization and Exploitation for Europe' and have been involved in research on duckweed in relation to nutritional compounds for food and feed; I have been involved in many plant related projects such as health promoting compounds in tomato and onion but also in biosynthetic pathways (e.g. cell wall biosynthesis) related to fiber quality in fiber hemp, Cannabis sativa L. (EU-HARMONIA).
Before, I have been involved in fundamental and applied research by using molecular biology and biochemistry tools at Wageningen University from 1987-1998, studying e.g. gene regulation for citric acid production (intracellular enzyme production) and extracellular enzyme production (cell wall degrading xylanases, cellulases etc.; glycolysis enzymes) by fungi, e.g. Aspergilli, for food and feed applications.