Christophe Courtin is full professor at the Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Biochemistry at KU Leuven, Belgium. His research focuses on cereal starch and non-starch carbohydrates, the enzymes that degrade them and microorganisms in cereal processing. The emphasis is on a basic understanding of the structure and properties of these carbohydrates as well as on their technological and health functionality in cereal-based processes and products. He has authored 350+ papers, holds 12 patent families, and is coordinator of the EU project HealthFerm. 

Nicholas Bokulich is Professor of Food Systems Biotechnology at ETH Zurich. His group develops technologies to study the role of microbiomes in foods and human health using DNA sequencing, omics technologies, and bioinformatics. He earned his PhD at UC Davis and after postdoc positions at New York University Langone Medical Center and Northern Arizona University he joined ETH in 2020. His group co-developed popular bioinformatics tools for microbiome analysis, and he is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in bioinformatics, biotechnology, and food microbiology.

HealthFerm Consortium

Coordination: ETH Zurich (Nicholas Bokulich, Annina Meyer & Jan Tan) & KU Leuven (Christophe Courtin & Yamina De Bondt)

Prof. Nicholas Bokulich, along with PhD students Annina Meyer and Jan Tan, from ETH Zurich (Switzerland), are coordinating the citizen science project, together with expert support from Citizen Science Zurich. ETH Zurich is one of five sample collection hubs, with the other hubs located at the University of Helsinki (Finland) with Rossana Coda and Fabio Tuccillo, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) with prof. Stefan Weckx, prof. Luc De Vuyst and Thomas Gettemans, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) with prof. Raffaella Di Cagno and Chiara Virreto and the Institute of Biology Bucharest (Romania) with prof. Medana Zamfir. The five universities served as regional hubs for sample collection, communication, microbial isolation and characterisation and outreach. KU Leuven (Belgium), as coordinator of the HealthFerm project, with Prof. Christophe Courtin and Yamina De Bondt, is involved in coordination, dissemination and input from a food science perspective. Umeå University (Sweden), with prof. Armando Perez-Cueto and University of Copenhagen (Denmark) with prof. Helene Christine Reinbach and prof. Michael Bom Frøst provided input for the social sciences part. Eurice (Germany), with Lena Prochnow and Wannes De Man, supports communication and dissemination. All other partners from the HealthFerm project were involved in discussions and helped with communication and dissemination: University of Turku (Finland), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden), Novonesis (Denmark), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (Finland), Puratos (Belgium), Valio Ltd (Finland), Planted Foods AG (Switzerland), University of Eastern Finland (Finland), Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (Flemish Institute for Biotechnology) (Belgium), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Institut Lyfe Research & Innovation Center (France), Bridge2Food (The Netherlands), HealthGrain Forum (Finland), International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (Austria).

This project started with co-created workshops where citizens helped design surveys, home experiments, and data collection methods relating to sampling sourdough. The project has also successfully expanded across Europe. The jury appreciated how this project is offering new ways to explore knowledge gaps relating to plant-based fermented foods. The active participation of home bakers and their contribution with their local knowledge across Europe represents an interesting approach to this important issue.