Consultant on Beneficial Microbes - Probiotics - Prebiotics - Synbiotics : Koen Venema
One of the leading experts on Beneficial Microbes with over 20 years of experience. More than 150 publications. Initiator of the Beneficial Microbes Conferences and Editor-in-chief of the journal 'Beneficial Microbes'.
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This is a non-complete list. If you do not happen to find what you are looking for, feel free to get in touch with me to see if that service can be provided too.
I am Koen Venema, PhD. Practically my entire scientific career I have been working on what I now call Beneficial Microbes®
I received my PhD in Natural Sciences at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, on the antimicrobial activity of bacteriocins produced by lactic acid bacteria (LAB).
I then pursued the health-beneficial activity of these microbes as a PostDoc at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA, where I studied the potential of LAB to function as carrier for vaccines.
After that I have been employed by TNO for > 15 years, where I used the sophisticated, dynamic, computer-controlled in vitro models of the gastro-intestinal tract (developed by TNO, and nick-named TIM) to study i) the survival of probiotics in TIM-1, and ii) the effect of functional foods and drugs on the activity and composition of the colonic microbiota in TIM-2. Within TNO I led many multi-disciplinary projects on health of the host (e.g., gut health, inflammatory disease, allergy, obesity).
In the period 2004-2014 I have been project leader of two projects within the Public Private Partnership ‘Top Institute Food & Nutrition’ (TIFN), of which TNO is a partner. Within these multidisciplinary projects the research was devoted to the effect of the activity of the microbiota on gut health, and the (direct) interaction of pro- and prebiotis with the immune system of the host. Since Sept 2014 I run a newly established research group at Maastricht University - campus Venlo, where I have a chair in Gut Microbiology and where we use TIM to study the effect of the gut microbiota on health, and the role of pro- and prebiotics (amongst others) to modulate the gut microbiota and its activity.
I am the initiator and co-organizer of the Beneficial Microbes Conference-series and I am Editor-in-chief of the journal Beneficial Microbes.
Since January 2014 I have started my own company in the area of Beneficial Microbes® Consultancy.
Feel free to Contact me at the bottom of this page.