is a Nutritionist, acting department head at the Max Rubner Institute, and adjunct professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; he was chair of the ILSI Europe expert group on nutrition and immunity in man. He has an extended number of publications in the field of nutritional immunology. The Max Rubner-Institute (MRI) is a government-funded German research institution. Its primary task is to advise the Federal Ministry on matters of human nutrition and consumer policy, and to carry out the research needed as the basis of such advice. Research is conducted in the fields of nutrition, food science, nutrition behaviour and related fields. Special emphasis is placed on the elucidation of the role of food constituents including phytochemicals and their role in disease prevention.
Prof. Watzl has extended experience to measure immunological, antioxidative, and anticarcinogenic activities of food constituents or diets at the cellular level, in animal models as well as in human intervention studies. In the field of nutritional immunology the primary goal of the Department is to understand the importance of diet for optimal immune function; a long-standing experience in analysing the constituents of fruits and vegetables, the investigation of resource-preserving procedures during the treatment of fruit and vegetables as well as of chemical and microbiological risks along the production chain. Regarding nutritional analysis, the aim of the Department is to identify and quantify micro and macro constituents in fruit and vegetables, including vitamins, fatty acids, mycotoxins, and phytochemicals (carotenoids, polyphenols, phytoestrogens etc.) and to assess their bioavailability and metabolism in vivo and in vitro.
