Specialization
Focus of research
The focus of my research encompasses the role of the gut environment, including microbiota and metabolomics, on health outcome. Key research targets include novel techniques to study composition and function of the microbiota and related metabolites, and development of non-invasive point-of-care biomarkers to monitor gut inflammation. I have adjusted electronic nose (eNose) technology to detect fecal volatile metabolic prints and have for the first time shown the potential of this technique to predict diseases like colorectal cancer (CRC), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and sepsis. My experience with eNose-technology has resulted in several (inter)national collaboration projects, including prediction of mortality in malnourished Malawian and Kenyan children and prediction of sepsis in leukemia. I have a key role in design and supervision of these projects and in allocation of grants to finance these projects. I am primary supervisor of 7 PhD students in the field of (pediatric) gastroenterology, 3 of them will defend their PhD-thesis in 2021.