Poster prize winners at Food Colloids 2018

The School of Food Science & Nutrition, University of Leeds hosted the successful 17th Food Colloids Conference: Application of Soft Matter Concepts, which took place between 8th – 11th April 2018.

Morfo Zembyla, University of Leeds

The conference welcomed 300 delegates from 29 nations who attended the conference to learn, network and engage with the Food Colloids research that was presented. The event was not only special as it marked the return of the conference to the UK after 14 years but also because of the record-breaking number of attendees, number of countries represented and high quality posters in the conferences’ history.

The conference boasted 182 posters that were on display in the iconic Parkinson building throughout the event to maximize exposure to the cutting edge research. All students were entered into the Poster Prize which was sponsored by Food & Function. The three winners of the competition were: Morfo Zembyla (University of Leeds) Stabilization of water-in-oil emulsions using food grade materials, Judith Wemmer (ETH Zurich) Integration of laccase-mediated polymerization in processing of biopolymer mixtures and Mamisoa Nomena (University of Amsterdam) Drying of cellulose microfibril stabilized emulsions.

Judith Wemmer, ETH Zurich

Poster Prize winner Morfo Zembyla stated: “It was a successful and highly stimulating conference providing a great opportunity to discuss science with academic and industrial people from all over the world. My poster was awarded with the Food & Function poster prize and I am glad to see my work being recognized and rewarded. I kindly thank my supervisors, Prof Brent Murray, Dr Anwesha Sarkar (both from University of Leeds) and Dr Stewart Radford (Nestlé), for their support and guidance.”

The University of Leeds is home to the biggest and most highly cited Food Colloids and Processing academic group in Europe. The Food Colloids Group at the University of Leeds is internationally acclaimed for its interdisciplinary research worldwide, ranked first in Europe and third in the World according to field-weighted citation impact in Food Colloids, making it an ideal location for the conference destination, alongside it originating in Leeds.

Mamisoa Nomena, University of Amsterdam

Anwesha Sarkar, Associate Professor of Food Colloids at the School of Food Science & Nutrition at the University of Leeds, who is the conference chair commented: “We are delighted with the incredible success of our recent conference held in Leeds, and felt it truly highlighted the excellent conferencing facilities the city has to offer. The event offered an ideal environment for inspiring scientific conversation, with new knowledge uncovered as Food Colloids research reaches an important crossroad with paradigm shift towards ‘tailored’ food design for improving nutrition and human health.

There was a strong focus on the use of advanced structural characterization techniques that ranged from macro scale to few nanometers to understand complex food structures being presented by experts from various disciplines (from food science to pharmaceutical science to physics to mechanical engineering to biology). The buzzing city of Leeds also has a vibrant multi-cultural aspect and it is only a few miles from the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, where we had the opportunity to sightsee during the social event organized for the conference delegates – we are aiming to visit again soon!”

Poster prize winners, Food & Function Deputy Editor Rebecca Brodie, Professor Alan Mackie

 

by Sameera Rafiq, Research Support Officer
School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds

Notes to editors

Food Colloids is a biennial conference in the field of physical chemistry of complex foods. The subject area of the conference is physical chemistry of complex food systems with special emphasis on macromolecules that structure food. The aim is to expand knowledge on how interactions between food components create multi-phase structures on different length scales.

For more information on Food Colloids and its upcoming conference, please visit: http://www.foodcolloids2018.co.uk/

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Food Matters 2018

Food & Function had the pleasure of sponsoring Food Matters 2017 and we are back again for another year!

It will be held at ExCeL London, from 20th – 22nd November, 2018.

As the UK’s largest and fastest growing event showcasing the food and drink innovations shaping health and wellbeing, it is simply not to be missed.

Food Matters Live brings together a cross sector community of engaged industry experts – the policy makers, the innovators, the fresh start ups, the established household names, in an unmissable three day event. Join 800 exhibitors, 400 speakers and 1000s of visitors at Food Matters Live 2018.

If you are quite rightly interested in this event, then please click here for further details.

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Will you be at Food Colloids 2018 in Leeds?

Will you be at Food Colloids 2018, April 9-11, in Leeds, UK?

Food Colloids is a biennial conference in the field of physical chemistry of complex foods. The main theme of this conference is ‘Application of Soft Matter Concepts’ and the scientific sessions will cover a series of topics illustrating the interplay between fundamental colloid science research and more applied soft matter research.

Food & Function will be sponsoring the three student poster prizes, so best of luck!

Rebecca Brodie Rebecca Brodie, Deputy Editor, Food & Function

Please feel free to get in touch with me before the conference to arrange a meeting: food-rsc@rsc.org

I look forward to meeting you in Leeds!

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Outstanding Reviewers for Food & Function in 2017

We would like to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for Food & Function in 2017, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

We would like to say a big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

 

Dr. Wei Zhang, Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, ORCID: 0000-0002-0013-9200

Dr. Monica Galleano, University of Buenos Aires, ORCID: 0000-0002-7184-7896

Dr. Xian Wu, Tufts University, ORCID: 0000-0002-6805-3737

Dr. Gar Yee Koh, Tufts University

Professor Bradley Bolling, University of Wisconsin-Madison, ORCID: 0000-0002-4222-2467

Dr. Luis Goya, Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (CSIC)

Professor Hitoshi Ashida, Kobe University

Dr. Min Li, Purdue University, ORCID: 0000-0002-9651-1301

Dr. Lillian Barros, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, ORCID: 0000-0002-9050-5189

Dr. Huaqi Zhang, Netease Inc.

 

We would also like to thank the Food & Function board and the food science community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

If you would like to become a reviewer for our journal, just email us with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre

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Christine Morand: New Food & Function Editor-in-Chief

We are delighted to announce that Christine Morand has taken over as Editor-in-Chief of Food & Function.

Christine Morand is a full research director at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), in the division “Nutrition, Chemical and Food Safety, Consumers behaviours” and works in the Human Nutrition Unit where she leads a research group focusing on diet, plant food bioactives and vascular health. She obtained her MS (1985) and PhD (1991) in cellular and molecular biology from the Blaise Pascal University of Clermont-Ferrand and her Habilitation to supervise research (2005) from the University of Auvergne.
She has been working for 12 years in the field of Nutrition & Health to study the role of dietary polyphenols in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases through a translational approach. This research includes human intervention studies with non-invasive assessment of vascular function, supplementation studies in animal models of atherosclerosis and cell experiments on vascular and immune cells. Previously, she worked on the absorption and metabolism of dietary polyphenols and on the splanchnic metabolism of nutrients. She belonged to the research group of INRA that have initiated the 1st International Conference on Polyphenols and Health (Vichy, 2003) and she chaired in 2015 its 7th edition in Tours (France). Presently, she chairs the COST-Action POSITIVe-FA1403, addressing through a multidimensional approach, the complexity of the interindividual variation in response (bioavailability and bioactivity) to the consumption of plant food bioactives in relation to cardiometabolic health (http://www6.inra.fr/cost-positive).

We recently had a chance to catch up with Christine to talk about her plans for the journal.

What are you most looking forward to in your new role as Editor-in-Chief and what are your aims?

A better understanding of the role of foods in preservation of the main physiological functions of the body constitutes an exciting area of research of the 21st Century with large prospects of innovation. Food & Function provides a unique platform for research related to the chemical and physical properties of food constituents, their fate in the body and their nutritional and health benefits in humans and I am very honoured and happy to be on the board of the journal. Also I’d like to acknowledge my eminent predecessors: Professor Gary Williamson, who founded the journal in 2010, and to Professor Kevin Croft, who succeeded him from 2014, whose vision and involvement laid to an outstanding recognition of the journal in less than ten years (IF 3.247). As new Editor-in-Chief of Food & Function, my most fervent hope is to work in close connection with the members of the editorial board, advisory board and editorial office to continue the current momentum and ensure the success of the journal by publishing high quality research ranging from foods to human studies.

What direction do you see this research field moving in and what do you imagine will be the next big breakthrough?

There is a general consensus that dietary habits and foods are key drivers for the maintenance of health through life. However, a lot of research is still needed to provide science-based knowledge on which we will be able to refine dietary recommendations regarding some specific foods or food components, to design foods targeting specific groups of population and thereby evolve towards the development of personalized nutrition.

Reaching this goal implies the development of more and more multidisciplinary research associating food scientists, microbiologists, physiologists and nutritionists, together with the use of breakthrough technologies (omics and computational) for a full characterisation of the complexity of the interactions between foods and human health. Completing this challenge will not be an easy task but so exciting for a new generation of researchers who will provide sound science that will lead undoubtedly to significant and concrete innovations in the field of foods, health and well-being.

Can you select one paper from 2017 in Food & Function that stood out from the crowd?

Rather than selecting among several hundred publications, one paper standing out from the crowd in 2017, I’d like to underline my interest for several in-depth reviews, published in regular issues or in themed collections, that provided both expert and non-expert scientists a comprehensive overview on a diversity of topics, ranging from peptides and human health, fate in the body and health properties of phenolic compounds, food structures and perception, microalgae and functional foods, and so forth. Regarding full papers reporting primary research, I noticed the growing number of papers considering the role of gut microbiota in the conversion, metabolism and health effects of foods or the ability of foods/components to shape microbiota with potential health impacts at the intestinal or systemic levels. This complex crosstalk between foods, microbiota and health deserves further investigations and will probably constitutes another hot topic of research in the coming years.

Once again, we’d like to congratulate Christine on her new role and we look forward to her term as Editor-in-Chief.

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Meet the Newest Members of the Food & Function Advisory Board

 

We are delighted to announce the appointment of four new members to the Food & Function Advisory Board

 

Elke Scholten, Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands

Elke Scholten was the Guest Editor of our recent Structure & Sensory themed collection. Her review article from the collection on “Composite foods: from structure to sensory perception” was one of our 2017 HOT articles.

 

Natalie Ward, Curtin University, Australia

Natalie Ward is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. You can read her most recent Food & Function  article on “Acute effects of chlorogenic acids on endothelial function and blood pressure in healthy men and womenhere.

 

Monica Galleano, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Monica Galleano was one of the Outstanding Reviewers for Food & Function in 2016. Her most recent article in the journal on “Modifications in nitric oxide and superoxide anion metabolism induced by fructose overload in rat heart are prevented by (−)-epicatechin” can be found here.

 

Jianping Wu, University of Alberta, Canada

Jianping Wu is the Guest Editor of the Food & Function themed collection on the International Symposium on Bioactive Peptides, which is currently in progress. You can read his recent Food & Function article from the collection here.

 

 

 

Food & Function is guided by an international Editorial Board and Advisory Board – more information on our board members can be found on our website. We welcome the knowledge and expertise our four new Advisory Board members will bring to the journal and we very much look forward to working with them. Welcome to the Food & Function team!

 

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17th Food Colloids Conference: Application of Soft Matter Concepts

The 17th Food Colloids Conference is being held from 8th – 11th April 2018, at the University of Leeds, UK.

The subject area of the conference is physical chemistry of complex food systems with special emphasis on macromolecules that structure food. The aim is to expand knowledge on how interactions between food components create multi-phase structures on different length scales. Furthermore, the role of food processing and its influence on these interactions and structures shall be addressed. Another key area of the conference will be how fundamental knowledge can be used to better understand behaviour of food structures during oral and gastrointestinal processing and to create novel structures with the aim of delivering functionality in the multifarious sense of the word (e.g. nutrition, health, controlled release, texture and taste).

Themes

The main theme of this conference is ‘Application of Soft Matter Concepts’ and the following scientific sessions will cover a series of topics illustrating the interplay between fundamental colloid science research and more applied soft matter research.

  • Interfacial design
  • Relating structure to properties (macro-meso-micro-nano)
  • Biopolymer interactions
  • Colloidal aspects of eating and digestion
  • Processing of novel structures for functionality

Key Dates

  • Early Bird Registration Ends: 16th February 2018
  • Last Registration for Authors (Presenters): 23rd February 2018

Register here

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Introducing the newest members of the Food and Function Advisory Board

We are delighted to introduce you to the two newest members of the Food and Function Advisory Board.

 

Xingbin Yang, Shaanxi Normal University, China

Beiwei Zhu, Dalian Polytechnic University, China

 

Both members have recently been appointed to the Advisory Board and we welcome the knowledge and expertise they will bring to the journal. We very much look forward to working with them. Welcome to the Food and Function team!

 

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Food Matters Live 2017

Meet the innovators shaping the future of food & drink

Food & Function is pleased to be sponsoring Food Matters Live 2017.

Food Matters Live is the UK’s fastest growing cross-sector event showcasing innovation in the food and drink industry and it returns to London’s ExCeL from 21 – 23 November 2017. Register for free entry.

Food Matters Live is delighted to unveil the education programme for 2017…
Celebrated chef Heston Blumenthal, former Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King and neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield will head up an all-star cast of 400 speakers across 100 free-to-attend conference and seminar sessions at Food Matters Live 2017. Read more.

New highlights for 2017 include…

The Awards – designed to celebrate inspiring innovation and creativity from across the food and drink industry.

Match – a matchmaking service offering both exhibitors and visitors the opportunity to pre-arrange meetings onsite at Food Matters Live.

Food futures seminars– These new seminars will focus on the innovative products, processes and new technologies shaping the future of food and drink production and business.

Join 800 exhibitors and 400 speakers at Food Matters Live 2017, providing you with everything you need to keep your business at the cutting edge of innovation, in an unmissable three-day event. Find out more www.foodmatterslive.com

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Atomic Force Microscopy and Food Workshop

afm-workshop

The Atomic Force Microscopy and Food Workshop will be held from 9th – 10th November, 2017, in Auckland, New Zealand.

Immediately following DOF17 there will be a 1.5-day workshop at the University of Auckland on the use of Atomic Force Microscopy in food and nutrition research. The workshop aims to attract 20-30 participants across a broad range of research areas.

The main focus is to provide participants with practical experience of analysing food materials using the latest AFM techniques and equipment. In addition, participants will learn about recent progress in the field from leading international AFM experts working in the areas of foods, biomaterials, and soft matter systems.

The workshop will cater for beginners and AFM experts alike. We also anticipate involvement of advanced users seeking exposure to new analytical approaches.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Unique aspects of force included within microscopy

Patrick Gunning, Quadram Institute Bioscience (f. Institute of Food Research), Norwich, United Kingdom

The combination of high-res visualisation of ultrastructure with force measurement is the major impact of AFM. The potential of force spectroscopy to probe the specifics of receptor-ligand interactions at the single molecule level is promising. For example, factors such as bond lifetimes, distances, and the number and nature of the energy barriers involved in single receptor-ligand interactions, are all within the realm of AFM measurement. My presentation will include explanations of the fundamental aspects of AFM’s force spectroscopy and demonstrate the ability that this combination has successfully enabled exploration of structure-function relations in food science. It features several aspects; food material science, digestion, satiety, bioactivity and my most recent investigation of the role of the gut microbiome.

 

Analyzing Polymers, Filaments, Biomacromolecules and Fibrous Objects via the open-source code FiberApp

Raffaele Mezzenga, ETH Zurich, Department of Health Science & Technology, Schmelzbergstrasse 9, LFO E23, 8092 Zurich

Biological semiflexible polymers and filaments such as collagen, fibronectin, actin, microtubules, coiled-coil proteins, DNA, siRNA, amyloid fibrils, etc. are ubiquitous in nature. In biology, these systems have a direct relation to critical processes ranging from the movement of actin or assembly of viruses at cellular interfaces, to the growth of amyloid plaques in neurodegenerative diseases. In technology and applied sciences, synthetic macromolecules or fibrous objects such as carbon nanotubes are involved in countless applications. Accessing their intrinsic properties at the single molecule level, such as their molecular conformations or intrinsic stiffness, is central to the understanding of these systems, their properties, and the design of related applications. In this talk I will discuss the features and potential of FiberApp in analyzing polymers, fibrils and filamentous objects. FiberApp is a new open-source tracking and analysis software based on a cascade of algorithms describing structural and topological features of objects characterized by a very high length-to-width aspect ratio, generally described as “fiber-like objects”.

Imaging challenges in bionanotechnology

Jenny Malmstrom, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand

In our research group we are interested in the interface between materials and biological systems – such as proteins and cells. Structured or organised surfaces with nanoscale features are important in a range of fields ranging from energy and computing to controlling cellular adhesion. The precise organisation of proteins at surfaces is one route to creating such engineered interfaces. Proteins exist with an enormous structural and chemical versatility and lend themselves well to be functionalized with different moieties. The ability to rationally engineer proteins enables the use of proteins as carefully designed nanometer sized building blocks.

I will present work from our group focussed on using protein-protein interactions to build up higher order structures, and in particular to order these structures. Proteins like Lsmα and peroxiredoxin self-assemble into robust doughnuts whose pore size can be tuned specifically to encapsulate metal complexes or nanoparticleand then assemble further into tunnels to create magnetic, electrical or optical nanorods. This work describes how we are harnessing this potential to create functional arrays of these self-assembling protein rings. We have explored ways of arranging these protein rings, for example through templating using a self-assembling block copolymer, or through specific binding to a patterned surface. Furthermore, the protein core has been used to template the synthesis of small (~3 nm) magnetic nanoparticles. Throughout all of this work, imaging is an important characterisation tool and I will show how we use AFM (including magnetic force microscopy) and other techniques to understand our systems.

Nanoindentation of hierarchical biological materials: from polysacchride gels to living cells

Gleb Yakubov, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia

Atomic Force Microscopy is widely used to characterise the micromechanics of complex biological systems including cells. The attraction of using AFM for nanoindentation is its ability to measure very low forces and its operational versatility, as well as the potential to include in situ imaging. However, interpretation of force indentation curves may present a significant challenge especially for biological materials and systems that are heterogeneous and comprise a number of morphological features, each having a unique set of micromechanical properties.

Here, I present a novel Multi Regime Analysis (MRA) algorithm that tackles these challenges enabling deconvolution of highly complex force indentation profiles. The MRA approach combines both well established and semi-empirical theories of contact mechanics within a single framework. The fundamental finding is that each structural contribution to the mechanical response can be incorporated in series with other ‘mechanical resistors’ using a vector field of deformations mapped onto the experimental values of force. This simplification enables interpretation of the micromechanical properties of materials with hierarchical structures as well as automated processing of large data sets, which is particularly indispensable for biological systems.

Further, I will illustrate the applicability of MRA for characterising the micromechanics of a broad range of soft materials including plant cell and polysaccharide microgels. In particular, I will show the unique capability of MRA to map micromechanical properties and to evaluate elastic moduli of anisotropic materials with complex hierarchical structures.

AFM with soft colloidal probes – understanding droplet and bubble interactions

Rico Tabor, School of Chemistry, Monash Univeristy, Melbourne, Asutralia

Understanding the interactions between droplets of oil and gas bubbles is central to tuning the desired properties of foodstuffs such as ice cream and mousse, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and in mineral flotation and separation. Fundamentally, the interaction between dissimilar fluid interfaces is an interesting problem, as they may charge and deform to different extents, and can potentially experience a range of exotic forces due to the composition of the intervening fluid.

We have developed new methods to use the atomic force microscope (AFM) to analyse collisions between pairs of bubbles and oil droplets – of around 100 microns diameter – in various conditions.1,2 From surfactant-free interfaces where the native charge of the air–water and oil–water interface can be examined, to complex fluids where the granularity of the background fluid creates hysteresis and structural forces, almost all combinations of soft colloid can be interrogated.

Crucially, by combining the data obtained from AFM with other techniques such as confocal microscopy and small-angle neutron scattering,3 a complete picture of the role of solution structure and droplet interacts can be obtained. Now we seek to delve further into the realms of macroscopic and microscopic rheology to better understand the relationships between the rarefied single interaction forces measured using AFM and the bulk properties of the complex and multicomponent fluids that are central to food processing.

Us and Them: Inhomogeneities in Polysaccharides and their Gels Studied by AFM

Bill Williams, Bill Williams Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand

The emergence of patterning in biological systems is of fundamental interest. Here we first describe how the molecular patterning of a polysaccharide substrate influences its single molecule stretching behaviour and describe work designed to facilitate such AFM experiments by the end-tethering of species of interest. Secondly .we briefly review AFM work on the moduli mapping of plant tissues and describe our parallel studies on biomimetic gels that reveal large length-scale inhomogeneities in mechanical properties.






Click here to register for AFM and Food 2017

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