Changes in Biodiversity and Health in the Contect an Urbanizing World
Speakers
Arjen Speksnijder
Naturalis Biodiversity Center – is a molecular biologist who studies biodiversity using cutting edge technologies.
Dicky Tahapary
Medical specialist in endocrinology who is studying how urbanisation affects metabolic disorders.
Hermelijn Smits
Biomedical scientist who studies airway diseases and is interested in the interaction of the micro- and macro-biome with the airway mucosa
Katja Polman
Epidemiologist who studies the co-existence of communicable and non-communicable diseases in low-income to middle-income countries.
Kerstin Klipstein-Grobusch
Epidemiologist, Utrecht University
Maria Yazdanbakhsh
An immunoparasitologist studying the changes in the immune system and related diseases as rural to urban gradient and is also the chair of LUMC Global Platform
Nelson Mota
Dr. Nelson Mota at Department of Architecture of TU-Delft
Sitti Wahyuni
University of Hasanuddin
Yodi Mahendradhata
Medical specialist who has been studying infectious diseases and has been leading programs on Neglected and poverty-related diseases afflicting communities in Indonesia.
Event Details
Indonesia is urbanizing at a rapid rate and while its cities are places of innovation, and inspiration, its rural areas provide great source of biodiversity. The Netherlands is a highly urbanized country, struggling to keep a sustainable level of biodiversity.
With increasing urbanization and socioeconomic status, disease profile changes: communicable, infectious diseases become less prevalent giving way to emergence of non-communicable disorders such as allergies, and cardiometabolic diseases. At the same time, urbanization leads to loss of biodiversity. There is evidence that loss of biodiversity is linked to the modulation of the human health through changes in the microbiome that interacts with the human mucosal barriers: the airways, the gut and the skin. Through studying transition from rural to urban living, alternation in biodiversity and human health, it might be possible to find innovative solutions to diseases afflicting the Dutch and the Indonesian populations.
Learning from each other will be central to the organization of this session. While the Netherlands has strong technological platforms, Indonesia is a dynamic country that has a broad gradient of biodiversity in its different geographical localities. This provides a ‘living laboratory’ that will enable addressing the problems sketched and solutions needed. Together, the Netherlands and Indonesia, can form a very strong win-win partnership for dealing with one of the major global problems; urbanization.
To this end, a seminar will be organized for medical doctors, epidemiologists, biomedical scientists, (micro) biologists, nutritionists, social scientists and city planners on biodiversity and health in the context of an urbanizing world.
