»Future of Food: Feeding Tomorrow’s World«

International Spring School

11th – 15th March 2019 at Fulda University of Applied Sciences

11. – 15. March 2019 at Fulda University of Applied Sciences


Prof. Dr. Hans-Konrad Biesalski

University of Hohenheim, Germany - more

Prof. Dr. Urs Nigli

FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Switzerland -

Urs Niggli is Director of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in Switzerland (since 1990). He is responsible for the overall scientific, financial and administrative co-ordination of the institute with 200 staff and 80 students. He is also president of FiBL Germany, FiBL Austria and FiBL Europe in Brussels (80 scientific staff).

Urs Niggli is Honorary Professor at the University of Kassel in Germany where he teaches on organic farming policy and research strategy in the EU. He was appointed as Honorary PhD by the University of Life Sciences in Estonia.

His professional background is MSc and PhD in plant production. He started his career as weed scientist in grassland, arable and horticultural crops at two Federal Research Stations Agroscope.

He serves on boards of national, European and international committees for research, agro-ecology, sustainability and organic farming. Among others, he is member of the Swiss National Committee for FAO, of several scientific committees of the German Ministries of Agriculture, of Environment and of Research and Education. He has published or co-authored 240 papers.

www.fibl.org/en/team/niggli-urs-en.html

Prof. Dr. Holger Puchta

KIT - Botanical Institute, Germany

Holger Puchta holds since 2002 the Chair of Plant Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). After his study of Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and his PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Munich he joined the laboratory of Barbara Hohn at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel before he became group leader at the Leibnitz Institute for Plant Genetics in Gatersleben (IPK). He was worldwide the first scientist to demonstrate that site-specific nucleases can be applied for the controlled change of plant genomes. His group elucidated major mechanisms of DNA double strand break repair and he was leading in adopting the CRISPR/Cas technology to plants. For his work on plant genome engineering, he was awarded twice with an ERC advance grant.

Prof. Cathie Martin

John Innes Centre, United Kingdom

Cathie Martin has worked for over 25 years on phenylpropanoid metabolism, identifying regulatory genes, and using these to bio-fortify food crops with important phytonutrients. Recently, she has focused on engineering polyphenols in tomato and demonstrating their health-promoting properties. She has shown that increasing levels of anthocyanins in tomato can extend shelf life, post-harvest and confer reduced susceptibility to Botrytis cinerea due to their antioxidant activity.

She has supervised 29 PhD students, all of whom have completed their PhD theses and been awarded their doctorates at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and she is currently supervising four PhD students. She has supervised >30 post-doctoral fellows during my research career. She has taught Plant Biology at BSc and Masters levels at London, Milan, Cambridge, Chania and UEA.

Prof. Dr. oec. troph. Guido Ritter

University of Applied Sciences Münster, Germany

Born in 1965 in Flörsheim a. M., study of Food Chemistry at University Frankfurt, PhD in Nutrition Science and Home Economics at the University Gießen, 5 years Work Experience as Sen. Manager in the Food Industry.  Since 2000 Professor for Sensory Science, Food Product Development and Food law at the University of Applied Sciences in Münster.

Scientific Head of the food lab muenster. Member of the board of the Institute for Sustainable Nutrition (iSuN). Member of the board of the German and European Sensory Society (DGSens und E3S), Scientific expert in the Sensory Committee of the German Agriculture Society (DLG). Member of the Expert Committee „Lebensmittel und Nachhaltiger Konsum“ of the Federal Bureau for Nutrition (BZfE)

Research interests: Sensory, taste and enjoyment and Sustainable Food Product Development.

Prof. Dr. Huub Löffler

Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands

Huub Löffler graduated in Biology at the Free University in Amsterdam. He did a PhD in Plant Pathology at the University of Utrecht in 1986. After a post-doc at the department of Genetics back at the Free University, he accepted a function in genetics and breeding at the Institute for Horticulture in Wageningen. His main focus was resistance breeding both by conventional and molecular technologies. He worked for over ten years as scientist in these domains, at first focusing on ornamental plants, and later shifting towards food crops and food security. In 2000, he became Head of the research department ‘Food and Health’ and in 2005 Head of the department 'Marketing & Sales' and member of the Management Team of the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen UR. In 2010, he was appointed Director of Wageningen International of Wageningen UR, responsible for implementing international strategies, setting-up international collaborations, starting international programs and advising and assisting on international issues. In 2018, he stepped down from this position to focus on agriculture for development. He now is Strategic Advisor Development Cooperation at the Wageningen Center of Development Innovation.

From the start of his career, Huub Löffler was involved in international collaboration. He coordinated several Indonesian-Dutch research programs. A shift towards food security and Africa was boosted by the participation in the directorate of a study into food security in Africa. This study was committed by the InterAcademy Council at the request of Mr. Kofi Annan, and co-chaired by Rudy Rabbinge, MS Swaminathan and Speciosa Kazibwe. He was a coordinating member of the follow-up committee of this initiative. Building on this expertise, he chaired several workgroups advising the Dutch policy on Agricultural Research issues. He coordinated the European-Africa ProIntensAfrica program and was involved in the follow-up.

Currently, Huub Löffler is chair of the Supervisory Board of ICRA, member of the Board of Agrinatura-EEIG and vice-president of the Agrinatura Association, member of the CASCAPE Supervisory Board, member of the Dutch Food and Business Knowledge Platform and member of the High-Level Advisory Group for DESIRA. In addition, he is guest lecturer Food Security at Clingendael and co-editor of the book ’Food for all: Sustainable nutrition security’.

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