Kaisa Poutanen

1.1.2010 - 31.12.2014
VTT/University of Kuopio
food technology and nutrition sciences

Kaisa Poutanen has served as researcher and senior researcher at VTT Finland in 1980–1989, as Research Professor 1989–1999, Director of Research in 1994–1999, and since 2001 as both Research Professor at VTT and as Director of the University of Kuopio Food and Health Research Centre.

Research Professor Poutanen’s aim is to develop new foods that will help address obesity and other major public health problems. Her research goal is to identify the structural elements of foods that are relevant to the prevention of insulin resistance and to controlling the sense of fullness. One particular area of interest is the impact of specific bioprocessing on the different levels of cereal dietary fibre and their role in the release of nutrients and polyphenols, on bioconversions and absorption in the digestive tract, as well as metabolic functions relevant to intestinal hormone responses and insulin sensitivity.