Food Technology & Processing

Manfred Eggersdorfer is Senior Vice President for Nutrition Science & Advocacy at DSM Nutritional Products. He studied chemistry at the Technical University Munich and did his PhD in organic chemistry in the field of synthesis and characterization of unusual amino acid. He was post-doc at the Stanford-University,California working with Carl Djerassi on the isolation and characterization of sterols from marine origin. Manfred Eggersdorfer is active as professor for Healthy Ageing at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Groningen. He is member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Curatorial for Innovation, and affiliate of various other organizations.

His works focus its action on the subjects of food and environmental biotechnology and nutrition, with the aim of developing innovative technologies for the production of (a) new functional foods with potential beneficial effects on health (probiotics and prebiotics, natural products with positive effects, pharmaceuticals food, etc.) and (b) high added value products through the exploitation of various waste from the agro-industry by combining modern applications of Biotechnology.

Dr. Poirier has more than 15 years of international teaching experience working in culturally diverse environments. Her strengths include creating innovative educational programs with a focus on food and culture, identifying appropriate outreach efforts to solve community problems, and empowering students for successful careers. She has been recognized for her ability to create and teach online courses, work as an advisor for student organizations, and creating positive educational environments for optimal learning. She has published over 25 journal articles and been invited to speak in Malaysia, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Austria, Puerto Rico, and the Andros Island in the Caribbean.

Food safety, Food assurance

Dr. Vijai K S Shukla research interests have ranged from physical phenomena to mechanism of autoxidation, isolation of lipids, spectral phenomena related to lipids, modern analytical methodology and involvement of essential fatty acids in health and diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Batten's syndrome. He has shown essential fatty acid deficiency in multiple sclerosis and Batten's disease. These were related with glutathione peroxidase activity and antioxidants requirements in these diseases. He has also analyzed arctic diet in Greenland Eskimos and compared with Danes elucidating some of the mechanism of coronary heart diseases in these population groups. In his research work, Dr. Shukla employs modern analytical methodology in order to resolve various scientific problems.