Food Allergens

Katharina Blümchen is working in the Department of Pediatrics in the Division of Pneumology, Allergology, Infectious Diseases and Gastroenterology at the Universitymedicine Frankfurt, Germany.

Simon Brooke-Taylor established Brooke-Taylor & Co in Jan 2001 to provide specialist consultancy services in risk assessment, regulatory affairs, toxicology, food safety and compliance to the food sector. Simon has a BSc in Biochemistry (Toxicology) and PhD in Toxicology and over thirty five years experience in technical and production roles in the food sector. Simon has extensive knowledge of ANZ food standards. Between 1991 – end 2000, he held a variety senior positions with the predecessors of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (the National Food Authority (NFA) and the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA)) where he had leading policy and scientific roles in the development of the joint Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. Simon has also participated extensively in the development of international food standards, including leading the Australian delegation at meetings of Codex committees and serving as rapporteur to the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants and as a WHO adviser to the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). During 2020-22 Simon participated as member of the Ad Hoc FAO/WHO Expert Panel on Risk Assessment of Food Allergens, Meetings 1-5, including chairing meeting 4.

Elena Cubero Leon is Scientific/Technical Officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), where she manages the European Network for Food Allergen Detection Laboratories (ENFADL) and works on harmonising allergen analysis across Europe. She holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Sussex and has over 15 years of experience in food safety and mass spectrometry, combining method development for allergen detection with the organisation of proficiency testing for control laboratories.

Antonio Fernández Dumont has been working at the European Food Safety Authority since 2008, where he is a scientist in the GMO Unit focusing on the allergenicity risk assessment and safety evaluation of proteins in genetically modified food and feed. He is co‑author of the 2025 publication “Enhancing allergenicity risk assessment for novel foods in the EU: insights from the updated EFSA guidance – requirements, knowledge gaps and research needs”, reflecting his ongoing work on improving strategies for assessing the safety of novel proteins.

Sabrina Geisslitz is a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, specializing in proteomics-based analysis of celiac disease–active peptides in food products containing partially hydrolyzed gluten. Her work focuses on advanced mass spectrometry approaches to assess gluten degradation, immunogenicity, and food safety for individuals with celiac disease.

Izaskun Martín-Cabrejas holds a Ph.D. in Food Saftey, with 13 years of experience across academia, research, industry, and public health. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, with a strong research record in food safety, probiotics, and celiac disease, including 16 JCR publications and extensive teaching and supervision experience.

Lara Meixner is a research scientist at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, specialising in pediatric allergy and immunology. Her work focuses on early childhood nutrition, food allergy prevention, and the clinical assessment of emerging allergens. She has published extensively on strategies to reduce the risk of food allergies and improve pediatric dietary guidance.

Bert Pöpping is the Managing Director of the strategic food consulting company FOCOS in Germany and Co-Founder and Senior Scientific Expert of the regulatory and compliance company Food Orbit in Portugal. He has more than 25 years of experience in food safety and strategic advice for companies in the food supply chain. He is one of the experts on the joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Risk Assessment of Food Allergens. Bert has published more than 75 publications on food allergens, food fraud, food safety and food regulations. He also serves as an expert on the US Pharmacopeia Food Chemical Codex group dealing with food ingredients.

Zoë Shuttlewood has been Director, Product Integrity and Risk Management at McCormick & Company since July 2024, where she leads global food safety, risk assessment, and product integrity programmes. She has spent over 15 years at McCormick, previously serving as Senior Manager, Global Food Integrity and Risk and EMEA Food Safety & Quality Systems Lead, building deep expertise in HACCP, risk management, and food fraud prevention. She is Vice Chair of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Allergen Steering Group and represents McCormick in the Food Allergy Research & Resource Programme (FARRP).

Kitty Verhoeckx is an Analytical Chemist and an Assistant Professor at the Dermatology and Allergology Department of the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) in the Netherlands. In 1991 she started her career at TNO, where she had various research positions and was involved in various research topics, systems biology, bioactive lipids, etc. In 2005 she gained her PhD degree at the University of Leiden. Since 2011, Kitty Verhoeckx is involved in food allergy projects. She was a management committee member of the COST Action INFOGEST, participated in the ILSI Europe task force ‘Allergenicity and processing’, ILSI Europe FA Expert Group “Allergenicity’’, the EFSA Focus group on allergenicity assessment, and EFSA focus groups on food allergy and digestion. She was the Chair of the COST Action ImpARAS. Currently, she coordinates the Marie Curie DN ALLPreT (ALLergenicity Prediction Toolbox) and the Dutch project MoSIN (Monitoring the Safe Introduction of Novel foods).