I3A-LAQV (Food e Water Science – Green Chemistry Laboratory) FOODinteract Research Team (I3A-LAQV)

INTERESTS

● Chemical characterization of food components concerning macro and micronutrients;

● Settlement of a relationship between food composition and quality parameters such as aroma, colour and flavour.

● Application of dynamic sensory analysis and consumer preferences to understand market trends & consumer choices.

● Molecular characterization of agricultural species at the varietal level;

● Exploiting DNA-barcoding and high resolution melting analysis for species identification in foods (fish products and spices).

● New digital nanoplate-based methods for species specific quantitative authentication of foods.

● Understand and predict the allergenic potential of foods as affected by food processing and matrix

● Exploit potential strategies to mitigate the allergenicity of foods

● Propose highthroughput analytical methods for the detection/quantification of food allergens.

● Dietary exposure to food additives and unhealthy food components (trans fatty acids, salt);

● Dietary exposure to a wide range of contaminants, namely, mycotoxins, plastic additives and heat generated compounds;

● Follow the fate of contaminants by in vitro assays and in the human body through biomonitoring of biological fluids.

● Enhance nutritional and sensorial characteristics and reduce the formation of undesirable compounds;

● Formulation of new appealing processed products, towards the improvement of preservation, prevention of lipid oxidation or formation of harmful compounds throughout cooking.

● Assess the dissemination of a wide range of pollutants that can indirectly contaminate foods, namely, agrochemical residues, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and others;

● Estimation environmental risk and search for mitigation strategies to decrease food and water contamination.

● Valorization of compounds recycled from agro-industrial wastes (brewer’s spent grain and spent yeast, fruit peels and pomace, spent coffee, eggshell and canned fish wastes), thereby promoting the sustainability of industrial processes and add value to the chain production of the industries by development of new and profitable ingredients;

● Optimization of the extraction of valuable compounds from plant cell walls and yeasts.

● Formulation of new appealing processed products, toward the improvement of preservation, prevention of lipid oxidation, or formation of harmful compounds throughout cooking;

● Digestion, bioavailability and activity of nutrients/bioactive compounds assessed through in vitro methods using human cell lines and tissue models.

● Molecular, cellular and functional mechanisms that underlie protective/ therapeutic effects of nutrients and bioactive compounds against oxidative damage, hypertensive and vascular dysfunction, inflammation, angiogenesis, and cancer;

● Role of nutrition in the prevention of chronic diseases and overall health improvement. Impact of malnutrition on the pathophysiological mechanisms of foetal programming of hypertension.

● Explore and extract value from data obtained from FOODinteract research areas using mathematics, statistics, and machine learning fields.

● Application of techniques to find useful patterns, connections, and relationships within data.