Biography of Frans Kampers

After completing his PhD in physics in Eindhoven, the Netherlands Frans Kampers in 1989 joined the Dutch agricultural research organization (DLO), which is now part of Wageningen University and Research Centre. He headed a department on instrumentation and measurement technology for several years. This department was involved in research on sensors, microelectronics and microtechnology. Among other things he was chairman of an ISO working group that defined the international standard on RFID for animals, chaired a working group on Microsystems and Agriculture and was responsible for a project on sensors for sustainable food production within the DTO programme. After a brief period in which he was involved in information strategy Frans Kampers in 2003 was asked to investigate the possibilities of bionanotechnology in Wageningen, to define the structure in which these should take place and to develop a business plan for these activities. He soon discovered that the Wageningen expertise on food and nutrition could very well be combined with the possibilities of bionanotechnology. He now coordinates the research of Wageningen UR in the field of applications of nanotechnology in food. He is actively involved in the organization of funding programs in the Netherlands and is the initiator of CAT-AgroFood, the Wageningen Centre for Advanced Technology in AgroFood. He is often interviewed and invited to conferences to give presentations on the subject of nanotechnology in food.