Food & Function Blog

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/

Food & Function were delighted to sponsor a poster prize at the 15th International Nutrition & Diagnostics Conference which took place in Prague, Czech Republic between 5th-8th October 2015.

INDC 2015 – The International Nutrition & Diagnostics Conference 2015 is an international forum for scientific discussion focused on understanding the relationship and connections between nutrition and clinical diagnostics.

The aim of this multidisciplinary conference is to bridge the gaps between the specialists and fields of science as diverse as nutrition, clinical biochemistry, food technology, analytical chemistry and medicine.

INDC 2015 attracted 211 delegates, speakers and sponsors from 41 countries.

The Best Poster Prize was awarded to Vera Semenova from the Novosibirsk State Medical University, Novosibirsk, Russia with her poster entitled ‘Nutrition as a risk factor for changes in health status‘

Many congratulations to Vera on receiving your prize!

The 14th International Nutrition & Diagnostics Conference (INDC) took place in Prague, Czech Republic, from the 1st–4th September 2014. The conference aimed to be an international forum for scientific discussion focused on understanding the relationship and connections between nutrition and clinical diagnostics.

Food & Function was delighted to award a poster prize at the event. The prize went to Lenka Portychová, pictured, for her work entitled ‘Plasma free metanephrines as diagnostic markers of pheochromocytoma’. Many congratulations to Lenka on receiving this prize.

The 2014 Annual Meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research-Europe took place in Paris from the 5th–7th September. The conference aimed to promote communication between academics, researchers, clinicians and industry partners who are interested in free radical research.

Food & Function was delighted to award a ‘Food & Function Young Investigator Award’ at the event. The prize went to Iveta Najmanova, pictured, of Charles University in Prague, for her work entitled ‘Vasodilatory activity of human quercetin metabolites’. Many congratulations to Iveta on receiving this prize.

The 13th International Nutrition & Diagnostics Conference (INDC) was held at Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic, on the 26–29th August. The conference focussed on understanding the effects of nutrition on human health and fitness. Food & Function was delighted to provide a prize for the Best Poster winner. Congratulations to Katarzyna Maresz from Poland (photographed right) who won with her poster entitled: Dose dependent inhibition of marker of inflammation by pretreatment of Human PBMC with menaquinone-7 (MK-7) and cell activation with selected TLR agonists. Well done Katarzyna!

Plans are already underway for next year’s conference in September 2014. To find out more, please visit the website.

Caroline Montelius receiving her prize from Professor Michael Eskin

The 2nd Oxford Function Food Conference was held at The Oxford Hotel from the 13th-14th November 2012.  This year’s conference focused on functional foods and the role they play in helping to tackle obesity, diabetes and inflammation, and the 2-day programme included contributions from the UK, Europe, Canada and the US in the form of plenary lectures, symposium sessions and poster sessions.

Food & Function was delighted to be able to sponsor a poster prize for innovation at this year’s conference, which was awarded to Caroline Montelius from Lund University for her poster “Supplementation of thylakoids to a high carbohydrate meal decrease feelings of hunger, elevate CCK and prevent hypoglycaemia in overweight women“.  Congratulations Caroline!

Missed out on attending the conference? Go to the website for full highlights from the event including photos from the sessions and copies of some of the presentations.