prof.dr. JMJ (Annemarie) Rebel

Annemarie Rebel is head of the Animal Health and Welfare Department within Wageningen Livestock Research, part of Wageningen UR. In 2020 I became special professor at Wageningen University with the chair Healthy and Resilient Livestock. The chair has been incorporated within the Adaptation Physiology group.

I focus my research on a better understanding of resilience against disease and transitions which will result in tools to increase health and resilience in animals. During my entire career I researched the differences in host response and the interaction to different challenges. I am intrigued to elucidate the mechanisms explaining the differences in responses between individuals, to similar (given) challenges. Why and how differ these responses, and can we steer those into directions of desired responses. I like to collaborate with other researchers and to bridge expertise to find answers to complex questions, like resilience.

With this special chair I will study resilience of animals, the possibility to optimize the intrinsic capacities will lead to animals that are able to cope with challenges. Moreover this may lead to less disease outbreaks and supports the one health approach by increase for the one health part, reduction of medicine use, and less disease susceptibility

I gained my doctorate from Erasmus University Rotterdam for the human medicine subject ‘Recurrence rate of bladder cancer’. I subsequently did research at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on metastasis of prostate cancer. Following a switch to research in livestock I started at  Infection Biology within the Central Veterinary Institute.  At this moment, as head of the department of animal health and welfare (WLR)  I am responsible for research into the interaction between animals and the environment, such as nutrition, pathogens, microbiome,  and stress. With the aim to improve animal health, intestinal health and welfare. I participates in the Netherlands centre for One Health (NCOH) as scientific director smart and healthy farming.