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Professor Dr. Reiner Wittkowski - new Vice President of BfR

20/2003, 20.08.2003

The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has a new Vice President: State Secretary  Alexander Müller presented Professor Dr. Reiner Wittkowski (49) with his letter of appointment in the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture. Professor Wittkowski is in charge of the Analytics unit in BfR and the Senior Expert Office for Foreign Wine Inspection attached to the Institute.  Under his aegis methods were elaborated and evaluated on the international level, amongst other things, for the analysis of acrylamide.  They are now used around the country by official food control authorities to examine acrylamide levels in foods on the German market.  In June of this year Wittkowski was appointed for a term of three years as the President of the International Office of Vine and Wine (OIV), an organisation he has been involved in for the last 12 years. The Minister of Consumer Protection, Renate Künast, commented in her letter of congratulation, "Through their choice the members of the international governmental organisation, OIV, have acknowledged both the qualifications and the international standing of Reiner Wittkowski as well as the position of Germany as an important wine-growing and wine-drinking country."

 The food chemist Wittkowski is very familiar with the tasks of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. He already worked as a trainee in 1977 in the Max-von-Pettenkofer Institute of the then Federal Health Office (BGA). After working as a scientific assistant in the Institute for Food Chemistry of the Technical University Berlin and the Institute for Toxicology and Embryonic Pharmacology of the Free University Berlin and a research stay in the USA, Wittkowski became a scientific employee of the Max-von-Pettenkofer Institute in 1986.  He worked there for two years on the research project "Dioxin". In 1990 he became the head of the division "Wine and Other Beverages" in the BGA. He retained this position when the Federal Health Office was dissolved and the Max-von-Pettenkofer Institute became part of the Federal Institute for Health Protection of Consumers and Veterinary Medicine (BGVV).  In 1995 Wittkowski obtained his post-doctoral qualification in the faculty "Food sciences and Biotechnology" of the Technical University (TU) Berlin. In March of this year the TU granted him the status of a supernumary professor for the subject "Food Chemistry".

Wittkowski is a member of various national and international bodies.  Amongst other things, he is the deputy member of the Board of Trustees of Stiftung Warentest.  In conjunction with the 5th Research Programme of the European Union he coordinates various research proejcts.  Wittkowski is a member of the editorial committee of various journals, including the bulletin of the International Office for Vine and Wine (Revue Internationale) in Paris.

The President of BfR, Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel, and all members of staff wish him every success in his new duties.

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