John Van Camp is responsible for education, research and services concerning nutritional value of foods and food products, and the relationship between nutrition and health of humans. His research activities are related to bio-active components in food and food derived products and nutrition epidemiology.
John Van Camp obtained an MSc (1989) and PhD in Bio-Science Engineering (1996) at the Faculty of Bio-Science Engineering, Ghent University.
He did a post-doc at the “Institut für Physiologie und Biochemie der Ernährung” in Kiel, Germany (1997). Afterwards he became nutritionist associated to “nutriFOODchem”, research group Food Chemistry and Human Nutrition at FBE-UGent.
We develop advanced in vitro cell culture models to be used for intelligent combination of in vitro digestion, transport and bioactivity models, with the objective to evaluate in vitro in a more realistic way the potential of bioactives in human nutrition.
We use more realistic conditions under which bioactives act, with focus on endogenous metabolites applied under realistic concentrations and duration times and in combination with repeated exposures.
We apply cell (co-) cultures (intestinal cells, endothelial cells, hepatocytes, adipocytes) in human nutrition.
Characterisation of metabolites is done during digestion, absorption and metabolism. Digestion and transport (absorption) studies are combined with bioactivity studies to understand cardiovascular effects, anti-obesity effects, cell respiration and toxicity, and immune activity.
Our models are applied to the following bioactives:
