Prof. Dr. Jan Geuns, founding member of EUSTAS, and head of Laboratory of Functional Biology, Leuven University, Belgium

Jan M.C. Geuns studied biology at the KULeuven and is head of the Laboratory of Functional Biology of the KULeuven. His research interest is natural product chemistry and he published several papers on plants sterols and steroid hormones. Since 1993, his research focuses on the biosynthesis of sweeteners in Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni as well as on toxicological studies of the sweeteners in animals. He studied the metabolism of stevioside in volunteers. He is a fervent advocate of the use of Stevia and its sweeteners as food additives. He is one of the co-founders of the European Stevia Association (EUSTAS). He organized already 4 symposia on Stevia and was the editor of the 4 booklets of the proceedings. Recently, he published a book entitled: ‘Stevia and steviol glycosides’ with all the recent info on Stevia. Summary at: www.euprint.be.