Johan Garssen is Professor of Immunopharmacology at Utrecht University, where he’s also Head of the Division Pharmacology at the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences. At Danone Nutricia Research, after several functions as from 2002, Johan is currently Chief Scientific Advisor. He studied medicine and biology at the Free University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He specialized in immunology, pharmacology and biochemistry and finished both studies in 1987 cum laude. He is registered as immunologist and pharmacologists. He finished his PhD thesis at the University of Utrecht in 1991 on the role of T cells in respiratory allergy, an immunopharmacological approach. This PhD program and a postdoc period was partly performed at Yale University, New Haven, USA. Since 2022 he is heading the Future Food Research Hub at Utrecht University. In this research hub the major focus is linking sustainability to health. For this topic alternative proteins/plant derived proteins and food processing are key research areas.

After the postdoc period he became senior scientist and head immunobiology at the National Institute of Public Health in the Netherlands. There he coached many research projects, both preclinical as well as clinical research, in the field of immunomodulation induced by a.o. nutritional ingredients, drugs and environmental agents.

Johan Garssen published over 950 peer reviewed papers in the field of “immunomodulation”. He is editorial board member for several journals and has contributed to various grants, a.o. NWO, EU, NIH, STW, Bill Gates, EDB, RAAK-PRO, children hospital innovation grants. 

His major research field is translational research (from use-inspired fundamental research towards proof of concept clinical trials) aimed at prevention and/or management of immune related disorders with a strong focus on allergy/tolerance and inflammation management.