We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Outstanding Early Career Research Award 2025 from Sustainable Food Technology: a team comprising Luke Wayne Browning, Huafu Wang, James Ward Taylor, Pete Wilde, Marc Rodriguez-Garcia, Lynette Anne Makins Holland and Tuomas P. J. Knowles.
Their award-winning paper, “Digestibility and enteric release achieved with microencapsulates made from emulsion-templated plant proteins“, introduces a plant protein microcapsule which stabilises functional ingredients in food and drinks from manufacture through to digestion, while avoiding polymers and microplastic formation.
In their words:
“We have developed a novel plant protein microencapsulate containing vitamin D2 and the study described in our manuscript characterises the digestibility and controlled release of cargo throughout digestive phases. With our unique processing and oil-emulsification of pea protein, we show that robust microcapsules can be formed by spray drying with microscopic sizing that are dispersible and stable in aqueous systems under conditions relevant to beverage manufacture. Importantly, our production process does not negatively impact the digestibility of the microcapsules, and it promotes a favourable digestion profile for the enteric release of the vitamin D2 cargo.
“Employing the static in vitro INFOGEST digestion model, we examined the disintegration of microcapsules throughout digestive phases whilst quantifying release of vitamin D2 cargo by HPLC simultaneously. Our results demonstrate that these microcapsules exhibit resilience in the oral and gastric phases and are completely susceptible to the intestinal phase, thereby delivering the cargo to the site where small molecules, such as vitamins, are effectively absorbed. This novel encapsulate addresses the growing need for robust microcapsules made from natural, biodegradable and edible materials.”
Receiving the award, they add:
“We are completely thrilled to receive the Outstanding Early Career Research Award from our research published in the RSC Sustainable Food Technology journal. The award recognises all the creative and diligent efforts these past few years, and showcases fruitful collaborations between Xampla, Quadram Institute and the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge.
Our work represents a collaborative effort of highly multidisciplinary scientists from both academia and industry and we believe our findings will inspire further advances in encapsulates and other structured materials made from natural polymers. We want to thank and congratulate all the team who have contributed to this work.”
We are proud to celebrate this outstanding contribution to the field and look forward to what this team uncovers next!
🔗 Read the winners’ paper here!
About the team:
Luke Browning works as Senior Protein Scientist for Xampla, following a PhD and Post-doc at Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, and two years in industry as a manufacturing and QC scientist. His background and research themes have included the detection, quantification and characterisation of various plant proteins in fundamental, agricultural and biomaterials contexts. At Xampla, he leads on ways to extract and manipulate the physico-chemical properties of plant proteins from a variety of sources for producing biodegradable microcapsules, films and coatings.
Huafu Wang worked as a Senior Analytical Chemist for Xampla. From a background in chemistry and biochemistry, he has extensive experience in analytical method development and validation for beverage, food and pharmaceutical sectors. His role in this paper involved HPLC analyses for vitamin D.
James Ward Taylor works as Innovation Manager for Xampla, following a PhD at the University of Glasgow, and a Post-doc at Radboud University, Nijmegen. From a background in physical organic chemistry and self-assembly of soft matter, he researches new ways to control the self-assembly of proteins and other biomolecules to produce edible, biodegradable microcapsules, films and coatings. His role in this paper was in the microencapsulation process, using Xampla’s technology to effectively encapsulate vitamin D, and demonstrating its controlled release properties.
Professor Pete Wilde is an Emeritus Fellow of Quadram Institute. His early research focused on the interfacial properties of proteins and their role in food functionality such as foams and emulsions. Later, his research investigated how food microstructure changes during digestion and how this influences nutrient absorption, satiety, and metabolic health. He has a broad interest in how food structure impacts health outcomes, including obesity and type 2 diabetes, and how digestion can be modulated to improve physiological responses. He has published over 135 papers, delivered invited international lectures, and holds editorial and honorary academic positions in the field of food science.
Marc Rodriguez-Garcia is Xampla’s co-founder, having developed the technology with Professor Knowles at the University of Cambridge. With a PhD from the University of Glasgow, his expertise lies in the use of natural biopolymers in microencapsulation and other structured materials. Marc is a unique CTO with incredible scientific knowledge combined with strong commercial acumen.
Lynette Holland is Principal Scientist at Xampla, developing natural biodegradable fragrance encapsulates using plant polymers. Lynette has over 20 years of R&D experience in the fragrance industry previously developing fragrance delivery systems at Procter & Gamble and Coty, with over 40 patent filings. She leads the encapsulation technology development at Xampla and manages the IP portfolio.
Professor Tuomas Knowles is Board Scientific Advisor at Xampla, and the co-founder of three other Cambridge University spin-outs, Fluidic Analytics, Wren Therapeutics and Transition Bio. Professor Knowles has received a number of distinguished awards, including the Corday-Morgan Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics.
Follow us on LinkedIn and Bluesky for new articles and the latest news from Sustainable Food Technology and related journals at the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Get future updates directly to your inbox with our newsletters and email alerts. Sign up here.