Meet Dr. Dirk Bosch, CHIC Project Leader

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“I am fascinated by the enormous diversity of bioactive molecules that plants produce,” according to Dr. Dirk Bosch, a scientist with ca 30 years of research experience. His primary research activities have been centered on unraveling biosynthetic pathways in plants that lead to the immense biodiversity of molecules found in plants. He applies this knowledge via metabolic engineering of plants and microbes to bring innovation to the agro-food and health sectors.

He believes that New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) are here to stay and have already been implemented in many crops in many different countries. According to Dr. Bosch, due to the technology’s generic nature, “its speed and relatively low costs, NPBTs will continue to provide solutions so that traits can be implemented that contribute to challenges such as those related to nature and our environment, our health, and our food supply.”

Bosch is the coordinator of the European Union (EU) funded CHIC project. He helps connect different activities within the project, organise meetings, and manage reporting deadlines. He finds it highly stimulating, and a lot of fun, and he learns a lot being a part of the project! They initiated the project in response to a call for proposals from the EU collectively with his colleagues at Wageningen. They needed to assemble a multidisciplinary consortium so they built a small core team of several partners from different countries with complementary expertise overarching the needs of the project and utilising each other’s network.

During this 4-year program, what Dr. Bosch will miss the most, among others, about the project when it ends this year is the opportunity to work and collaborate with the project partners. The interactions with other colleagues and the diversity of disciplines the partners possess have been his favourite memories of being a part of this project. The positive attitude that all Partners share to work on their common goal is exciting as well. He is also very proud that the CHIC project, within five years, established a wealth of knowledge and progressed the state-of-the-art technologies related to chicory tremendously.

Dr. Bosch is currently the Team Leader of Applied Metabolic Systems at Wageningen University and Research. Throughout his professional career, he has initiated numerous EU and other national and international subsidies as well as contract research projects. He has over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and invented 19 independent patents and patent applications. He studied chemistry at the University of Leiden, obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Utrecht’s Microbiology Department, and subsequently worked as a PostDoc at Plant Genetic Systems in Ghent in Belgium.

 

CHIC Project Leader

Dr. Dirk Bosch, Project Coordinator

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