In this project the role of food matrix components in modulating the flavor profiles, nutritional/chemical properties, and oxidative stability of plant-based seafood formulations during processing and storage will be investigated. Lexicon to accurately describe seafood flavor(s) will also be developed.
Dr Frank and his team are working to create more desirable plant-based seafood flavors. They will apply natural flavor chemistry pathways knowledge and sensory techniques to identify the most suitable flavor precursors for a range of plant-based seafood products.
This project aims to use the immense diversity in mushroom-producing, new-to-food fungi to create improved fermented products. If the mycelium (the root network) has the same characteristics as the mushroom (the fruiting body), they can create tasteful and healthy products.
The project will publish an open-access techno-economic analysis (TEA) investigating a two-stage byproducts-to-lipids production system and modeling production choice trade-offs. The wet lab work will analyze organism lipid profiles under various growth conditions to inform the TEA.
The project aims to develop a sustainable toolbox of edible fungi strains to obtain intact RuBisCO from green tea. It bridges fungi fermentation with leaf protein production from waste streams, generating two promising alternative proteins in a single system.
Poor and inauthentic flavors of current seafood alternatives are a barrier to consumers’ acceptance. To address this shortcoming, the precision fermentation startup Nectariss plans to develop realistic seafood flavors based on the fermentation of mycelial fungi.
Dr. Speranza’s project explores solid-state fermentation to develop a protein ingredient with enhanced functionality and nutrition from peanut meal, an underutilized, high-volume by-product. The ingredient will be used to produce meat analogues with a desirable fibrous texture.
This project will optimize large-scale fermenter design and operating conditions. The team will model cell growth, fluid dynamics, and cell viability during scale up. Simultaneously, they will use flow chambers to understand cells’ reaction to physical and chemical stresses.
The Brodsky-Hanga collaboration will define an intracellular pathway in porcine muscle responsible for the uptake of glucose. The goal is to exploit this understanding to nourish cultured muscle cells for cultivated meat production.
This project will incorporate computational fluid dynamics and genome-scale metabolic models into techno-economic analyses. This detailed model of bioreactor performance and cell behavior will enable assessment and optimization of novel bioreactor designs more cost effectively than building and testing prototypes.
