Daisy Jonkers studied Biological Health Sciences with a special focus on (clinical) nutrition and completed her registration as Medical Microbiological Researcher at the Dutch Institution for Training as Medical Biological Scientific Researcher (SMBW). Currently, she is Professor of Intestinal Health at the department Gastroenterology-Hepatology of Maastricht University (since March 2019) and Scientific Director of research institute NUTRIM on Nutrition and Translational Research on Metabolism (since September 2020). Her research focuses on the bidirectional interaction between diet and gastrointestinal (GI) function (with a special focus on the intestinal barrier and microbiota), in the context of common GI symptoms and diseases, in particular Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), non-celiac gluten/wheat sensitivity (NCGS/NCWS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Therefore, analyses in large patient cohorts are combined with (invasive) clinical and mechanistic intervention studies and ex vivo/in vitro analyses (using e.g. patient derived biopsy samples, organoid models and cell culture systems), supporting a strong translational approach.
Furthermore, she is heading the Gastroenterology laboratory.
Prof. Jonkers participated amongst others in the Dutch Top Institute Food and Nutrition, the NWO/Carbohydrate Competence Center, public private consortia as part of Top Knowledge Institute (TKI Agri&Food, Health Holland) and various EU projects (such as FP7 projects SysmedIBD/305564, BIOM/305479 and Character/305676, IBS COST action GENIEUR and at present, H2020/EU IBS project DISCOVeRIE/848228). She is currently supervising 11 PhD students and another 25 have successfully defended their thesis. She has an extensive national and international network with over 235 peer-reviewed publications (H-index 55).