dr. JJ (Jurriaan) Mes

Dr. Jurriaan Mes is a molecular biologist and started his career in the area of fungal-plant interaction and finished his thesis at the University of Amsterdam in 1999. Then he moved to Wageningen Plant Research, working in the field of molecular breeding for agronomical important traits and studied fruit developmental genes in Arabidopsis and tomato. Then he moved to Food & Biobased Research working on molecular diagnostic for quality of fruit & vegetables and initiated research towards the health effects of food products. He is currently senior scientist, leading the Food Health Research at Food & Biobased Research, a multidisciplinary group focusing on aspects like taste (e.g. volatiles, sweetness), safety (allergens, gut integrity) as well as positive effects of food with an emphasis on the gut and immune system (digestibility, bioavailability, bioactivity). He is coordinating programme’s on pre- and probiotics both at a national and European level (CarboHealth, EU FibeBiotics) is involved in large National project on nutritional and health effects of sustainable protein sources (Future Protein and Duckweed) and was involved in other EU projects on quality and health of fruit products (EU Fruitbreedomics and EU Berry).

He had and have many project with different types of industry reaching from plantbreeding, growers/producers, retail, ingredient suppliers, food and feed companies ranging from small SME to large enterprices etc

Alzheimer’s is a very dramatic disease, both for patients and those around them. As yet, there is no medicine to prevent the disease or effectively combat it. One possible key to an effective medicine lies in our food, specifically in how our bodies absorb fat. On the basis of new insights, researcher Jurriaan Mes wants to search for a breakthrough. To this aim, he and his research group take part in the Fundamental Change campaign of WUR.