Dr. Sander Kersten is a Full Professor in the Division of Human Nutrition and Health at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a Courtesy Professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University (USA). He received his MSc degree in Human Nutrition from Wageningen University in 1993, and his PhD degree in Nutritional Biochemistry from Cornell University in 1997. After a postdoctoral stay in the laboratory of Dr. Walter Wahli at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, he moved back to Wageningen University in 2000 with a career development grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was appointed to Associate Professor in 2006 and Full Professor in 2011. In 2014 he became Chair of the Nutrition, Metabolism and Genomics group and in 2019 Chairman of the Division of Human Nutrition and Health.

Research in his group covers the following main themes: 1. Molecular regulation of lipid metabolism. The aim is to further understand the molecular regulation of lipid metabolism in hepatocytes, adipocytes, and macrophages, partly via elucidating the functional role of specific genes. 2. Immunometabolism , adipose tissue, and metabolic health. The aim is to better understand the role of adipose tissue and the immune system in metabolic dysregulation caused by (over)nutrition and characterize the underlying mechanisms using molecular and omics tools. 3. Nutritional regulation of intestinal health. The focus is on the nutritional programming and systems biology of intestinal health, with a special interest in dietary fiber, the gut microbiome, and transcriptomics.