A group of students from Wageningen University in the Netherlands visited the Quadram Institute, as part of a tour of European food and health institutes, universities and companies.

The students are at the end of their third and final year of the bachelor’s or in the first year of the master’s degrees. They are given the opportunity to take part in a 7-10 day European Excursion. This takes them across several different European countries, visiting different organisations relevant to the fields of nutrition and health.

Maria Traka, from QI’s Food Databanks team welcomed the group to the institute, and gave them an overview of their work curating the food composition data that underpins much of nutrition research. They also heard from researchers studying starch, antimicrobial resistance, microbial bioinformatics and the gut microbiome.

“We were very happy to showcase part of what we do at the Quadram Institute.” said Maria. “We were particularly impressed with the level of engagement from the students and the great questions that they had for all our speakers.”

Following the talks, the group were taken on a tour of the Quadram Institute building, before heading off to their next stop on the tour, Cambridge.