| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Jan-Peter (JP) van Pijkeren Associate Professor of Food Science |
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Research area Working at the interface of industry and medicine, focusing on the gut symbiont species Limosilactobacillus reuteri, for which select strains have demonstrated health-promoting, i.e., probiotic, properties. The ultimate goal of our research program is to leverage knowledge on probiotic mechanisms toward the development of next-generation probiotics, i.e., microbial therapeutics.
What excites you about your work?
“What excites me is the melding of basic and translational sciences. I really love basic science–thinking about mechanisms that relate to probiosis and microbial ecology, while, at the same time, thinking of approaches to apply such mechanisms toward a next-gen therapeutic or probiotic. To test the next-gen probiotics, we are working with different partners in academia and industry to further enhance strain development.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“Ultimately, I hope we will develop a probiotic strain that will be used in the clinic. Currently, we are optimizing recombinant protein production, stability and delivery using bioreactors, and assessing therapeutic efficacy in preclinical models. The idea that our efforts may lead to a therapeutic solution is equally motivational as exciting!”
We are very excited about the potential applications of the technologies developed by JP. We believe that this platform can make a different in several industries.
– Rafael Diaz, WARF, Licensing Manager
Want to learn more?
Rafael Diaz, [email protected], 608.960.9847