Information on Keynote presenter FAV Health
Volker Böhm, Institute of Nutritional Sciences, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany
Health promoting effects of secondary plant products
Volker Böhm studied Food Chemistry at Münster University (Germany). There, he also finished his PhD thesis in Food Chemistry in 1992. He qualified as lecturer in Human Nutrition at Jena University in 1999. Since 1993, secondary plant products are his main research topic, focusing on carotenoids and polyphenols. In 2000, he spent some time for a research stay with Prof. Steven J. Schwartz at Ohio State University in Columbus (USA). In Jena, he is research group leader (Bioactive Plant Products), teaching Food Chemistry and Food Technology. He coordinated the large European project LYCOCARD (2006-2011). His major research interests regarding secondary plant products are analytical aspects, behavior during processing and storage, human intestinal absorption and biological activities.
Yves Desjardins, Institut sur la Nutrition et les Aliments Fonctionnels, Université Laval, Canada
Prebiotic effects of fruits and vegetables
Yves Desjardins is full professor at the Plant Science department and he is affiliated with the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods at Laval University, Québec Canada. He was recently appointed Dianafood-NSERC Industrial Chair on prebiotic effects of fruits and vegetables (PhenoBio). Trained in plant physiology, he is conducting research on phytochemistry and functionality of bioactive compounds from plants. He is PI or collaborator on many major preclinical and clinical studies on type-2 diabetes, cognitive decline, low-grade inflammation, urinary tract infection, skin diseases, and oral infections. Over the years, he has accompanied many horticultural and food processing companies in the development and the validation of the health benefits of horticultural commodities (e.g. Glucophenol, Neurophenol). At the international scene, he is recognized for his innovative research program on health effects of fruits and vegetables. He was the Chair of the first International Symposium on Health Effects of Fruits and Vegetables in Québec City (FAVHEALTH 2005) and the OECD Symposium – “Emerging Topics in Health Effects of Fruit and Vegetables” in Lisbon, Portugal (2010). He was nominated in 2005 as Chair of the ISHS Commission Fruit and Vegetable and Health, a position he occupied until 2010 before being elected on the Board of ISHS. He organized in 2016 the International Strawberry Symposium (750 participants), which made a large place to health effects of this fruit. Recently (October 2017), he also organized the leading International Congress on Polyphenols and Health (www.ICPH2017-Québec.org). His leadership in the field is recognized worldwide; he has been invited on numerous occasions to give keynote lectures at international meetings over the last >20 years. Dr Desjardins is involved in many international research projects in France, Mexico, Italy, Brazil and Belgium. He has written more than 120 publications (Normalized H-index of 23.5) and has trained many graduate students at the Master (29), at the Ph. D. (10) and the Postdoctoral level (12) since the beginning of his career. He sat on numerous master and Ph.D. thesis review (more than 67) and has participated as an examiner on more than 21 Ph.D. thesis evaluation committee in Canada and internationally. Since 2013, he filed 3 patents.
Lars Ove Dragsted, Head of Section for Preventive and Clinical Nutrition, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Health benefits of fruits and vegetables and biomarkers of their intake
Lars Ove Dragsted is Professor in Biomedicine and Nutrigenomics. He earned his PhD in Biochemical Toxicology from the University of Copenhagen and has worked in both public and private research organisations with a focus on bioactive food components, chronic disease prevention and biomarker development. In the area of metabolomics his group has contributed with a range of human intervention studies to identify novel biomarkers of food and dietary intake and to predict metabolic changes and disease development. Recent research has focussed on the concept of biomarkers as such, on food intake biomarkers, and on the imprint of the microbiota on the metabolome. Lars Ove Dragsted is heading the Preventive and Clinical Nutrition group at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen; he has (co-)authored >210 peer reviewed research articles and >60 books, book chapters and reports.
