A Breakthrough Metabolic Health Solution

Robert JM Brummer is professor of Gastroenterology and Clinical Nutrition and senior consultant at Örebro University and University Hospital, Sweden. His field of expertise covers gastroenterology, clinical nutrition, gut barrier function, microbiota including pre/pro/post-biotics, mucosal immunology, microbiota-gut-brain axis and stress response, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases.

He is director of the interdisciplinary Nutrition-Gut-Brain Research Centre as well as the national research excellence center PAN Sweden (Plant-based Proteins for Health and Well-being). As Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University he leads the University Food and Health Strategic Programme that comprises all Faculties and Schools of the University.

Wim Saris is a professor emeritus of Human Nutrition at the Medical and Health Science faculty of Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He was a member of the Dutch Health and Nutrition Council and has chaired the Dutch RDA committee since 1985. He was a member of the Scientific Committee on Food of the European Commission in Brussels (now EFSA) from 1996 until 2003.

His field of expertise covers energy metabolism and substrate utilization under different conditions, such as athletic performance, obesity, diabetes and cancer, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between daily physical activity and energy and substrate balance. Other interests are gene-nutrient interaction in the gut and genetic susceptibility in relation to nutrition (Nutrigenomics).

John Funder is a distinguished scientist and professor emeritus at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia.

His field of expertise covers endocrinology and research in the field of the salt-retaining (mineralocorticoid) hormone aldosterone, and the role of the mineralocorticoid receptor in organs such as the kidney, and in hypertension and heart failure, linking endocrinology and cardiology (cardiometabolic health).

Ellen Blaak has been a professor in Human Biology since 2007 and is Chair of the Department of Human Biology. Besides being a professor at Maastricht University, she is a project leader within the Top Institute Food and Nutrition, a public-private partnership of academia and international Food Industry, focused on precompetitive research. She is a member of the Nutrition committee of the Dutch Health Council and of several national and international advisory board/grant evaluation committees.

Her research focuses on the interorgan metabolic crosstalk (gut-adipose tissue-muscle metabolism) in the etiology of obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (>320 publ) as well as the impact of nutritional or lifestyle intervention.

Lukas van Oudenhove is associate research professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Leuven, head of the Laboratory for Brain-Gut Axis Studies (LabGAS) embedded in the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID), and consultation-liaison psychiatrist at the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium.

His research focuses on mechanistic studies of (microbiota) gut-brain interactions in health and disease, including functional gastrointestinal/somatic disorders, disorders of appetite and food intake, (visceral) pain, and affective disorders, using a variety of methods including functional brain imaging.