Dieuwertje Kok

Dr. Dieuwertje Kok serves as an Associate Professor at Wageningen University & Research, where she specializes in understanding the complex relationships between nutrition and cancer through mechanistic and clinical research approaches. Her work integrates multiple disciplines, focusing particularly on folate metabolism and colorectal cancer. She leads groundbreaking research through the FOCUS Consortium, investigating how folate and folic acid impact cancer treatment outcomes and survival. Her recent work has revealed important findings about the relationship between folic acid supplementation and chemotherapy toxicity, showing that folic acid supplements during treatment may increase the risk of treatment-related complications. Her research combines epigenetic, transcriptomic, and metagenomic approaches to understand cancer development and progression, with particular emphasis on intestinal health and clinical applications. She plays a key role in the COLON study, a large-scale prospective cohort study examining how nutrition and lifestyle factors influence colorectal cancer outcomes. As course leader for the MOOC "Nutrition and Cancer" and the Professional Certificate Programme in Nutrition and Disease, she translates complex research findings into practical knowledge for healthcare professionals. Her multidisciplinary approach has contributed significantly to understanding how dietary factors, particularly folate and folic acid, influence cancer treatment outcomes and patient survival, leading to important insights for clinical practice and patient care.