HENK SCHOLS
Henk Schols did his PhD in Food Sciences on ‘Pectin structural elements of fruit and vegetables’ at the Laboratory of Food Chemistry.
After his PhD, he became lecturer in the same laboratory and in his position as Personal Professor, he is now strongly involved in carbohydrate chemistry and –enzymology with emphasis on the structure-function relationship of the various classes of carbohydrates. The main area of research has always dealt with plant cell wall polysaccharides, their chemical fine structure and changes during ripening, storage and processing of fruit, vegetables and cereals. During the last years different polymers have been studied in detail and research includes the embedding of plant polysaccharides within the cell wall architecture. His interest now certainly also includes non-digestible oligosaccharides and dietary fibres. The main focus of this prebiotics and fiber research is monitoring their fate and metabolisation in the human colon and understanding their role in establishing a healthy microbiome and immune system. Next to this, Henk has a strong interest in analytical techniques and strategies for the chromatographic separation of biomolecules using HPLC and CE, followed by both off-line and on-line characterisation of these molecules using different NMR-spectroscopic and Mass Spectrometric techniques.
Within the group, there is an on-going search for novel carbohydrate modifying enzymes, to be used in food-, feed- and biofuel applications.
The Food and Biorefinery Carbohydrate Biochemistry group of the Laboratory of Food Chemistry includes ca 12 PhD students and 2 postdocs.
Dr. Schols (h-index 69) is (co-) author of >350 peer reviewed papers in scientific journals and is also co-organiser of several international courses and symposia in the field of carbohydrates and enzymes. Henk is in the management team of the Carbohydrate Competence Center and Wageningen NMR Center Magnify.
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