Wednesday 19 November
19:45 live music
20:15 speakers
Café Loburg
Humans and their environment are teeming with microbes. Some of these microbes may be harmful to human health while others provide benefits. The fear of harmful microbes and the ignorance about the health benefits of microbes have resulted in reduced microbial exposures in modern lifestyles compared to the past. However, recent research indicates that exposure to environmental microbiomes through soil, air and food influences immune development in early life that can help combating allergies. How? In this Science café we explore the state of the art knowledge on microbiomes in the environment and human immune systems. Our first speaker, Prof. Hermelijn Smits, will explain how allergens can trigger asthma and how microbiome-mediated immune mechanisms can overcome this. Our second speaker, Dr. Niels van Best, will discuss the link between soil and environmental microbiomes and microbiomes in humans. He will specifically focus on the role of nature-born microbes in the development of infants’ microbiome and allergies.
Prof. dr Hermelijn Smits (Dept. of Immunology, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)) is an immunologist specializing in host-commensal interactions and their link to lung inflammation. Her research explores how “old friends” — beneficial microbes — influence immune regulation, identifying their mechanisms to develop novel strategies for preventing or treating lung disorders. As a leader of the international Dutch Lung Foundation consortium ‘A World Without Asthma’ (AWWA), she advances microbial-based asthma prevention strategies. She is a VICI laureate and former president of the Netherlands Respiratory Society (NRS).
Dr. Niels van Best is Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Infection Prevention at Institute of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM), Maastricht University Medical Centre+. His research focuses on host-microbe interactions and microbial ecology. He has a special interest in the microbiome development during infancy, and exploring the unexpected health benefits of outdoor play and interactions with soil microbiomes for which he received a NWO VENI grant in 2025.