Aletta Kraneveld studied Pharmacy at the schools of Pharmacy of the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University. As a junior researcher she worked at the department of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology of Glaxo Group Research in the UK (1990-1991). She obtained her PhD at the department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Utrecht University (1994) after which she continued her research at the department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School Boston MA, USA (1994). As a post doc she worked as an immunopharmacologist in Utrecht. In 1998 Aletta was appointed as assistant professor and in 2002 as associate professor at the division of Pharmacology of the department of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Utrecht University. In 2016 Aletta Kraneveld was appointed as full professor Interdisciplinary Translational Pharmacology at the Faculty of Science and the faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Utrecht University. Besides science, she is/has been an active member of several boards of (inter)national scientific and societal organizations (Dutch Society of Pharmacology, FEDERA, EPHAR, IUPHAR, Netherlands Federation of Innovative Drug research; Food Lives-NL; Diversity committee UU; Committee for Academic Integrity). Since March 1 2020, Aletta Kraneveld is appointed as the vice dean Research of the faculty of Science, Utrecht University.

Kraneveld’s current research interests involve targeting the interaction between innate and adaptive immunity as well as host-microbe interactions in chronic (inflammatory) disorders with pharmaceutical as well as nutritional interventions. The Kraneveld group is focusing research into in-depth study the role of the gut-immune system-brain-axis to further enhance knowledge on the interaction of intestinal microbiota, immune and nervous systems in chronic (inflammatory) conditions in the gut, airways and CNS (neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders). The intestinal tract is our largest surface exposed to the environment inhabited with trillions of microbes. 70 % of our white blood cells have their origin in the intestinal tract and are programmed by the microbes. In addition, the intestinal tract is innervated by 100 million of neurons forming the enteric nervous system that can communicate bidirectionally with the brain, but is also involved in local (neuro)immunomodulatory processes. Kraneveld group has gained more insight, with state-of-the-art in vivo models as well as in cell systems, in the importance of the intestinal microbiota, its ligands/metabolites and receptors as well as the epithelium in the tuning of the immune system with consequences for local and remote organ functions such as lung and brain. Aletta Kraneveld has set up a research program that is a (inter)national neuro-immune platform where academia, patient organisations and industry meet for research on the gut-immune-brain axis as target for medicine and medical food concepts.