Attività

Nowadays, consumers are becoming always more demanding for foods with a higher nutritional and physiological value for human health. Our research aims at providing the scientific link between food, nutrition and health, in order to provide useful knowledge for the development of new functional foods.

Research Objectives

In the XXI century, the health concept has been extended to the safeguard of physical and mental wellbeing, apart from the control and absence of diseases. In the Industrialized countries changes in the consumer’s live style, characterized by diets rich in calories and poor in fibers, and associated to a limited physical activity, have favoured the uprising of chronic-degenerative diseases, such us obesity, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes and tumors.

Nowadays, consumers have become more demanding on foods with higher contents of compounds, which have a role in the prevention of the diseases described above. As a consequence food industry has to adjust to those requests looking for new products that, at the same time, need to be produced according to new criteria of sustainability. The scientific research has to focus on the link food-nutrition-health in order to offer proper knowledge for the development of new functional foods and, in parallel, to investigate and to find proper ingredients, recipes, processes and plants to produce them.

At the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences several research groups are putting efforts in order to jointly understand the nutritional and physiological effects of functional foods on the human health, taking into consideration also the possibility to develop and optimize new ones to improve their diversity and availability on the market and to find new technology for sustainable industrial production.

The research group is formed by scientists with different but complementary expertise, which interconnection allows to properly study the definition and production of functional foods considering different aspects:

• characterization of the raw materials through chemical, physical, sensorial, microbiological and structural analyses;

• evaluation in vitro and in vivo of functional foods properties;

• impact of the functional foods on the diversity and activity of human microbiota;

• definition of the transformation process (and plants design guidelines when considering industrial-level production) able to preserve the functional components and development of methodologies for the process control;

• development of sustainable plants, energy chains and packaging;

• evaluation of the environmental impact of the process through the LCA study and other indicators.

Areas of Scientific Expertise

1. Isolation, characterization and optimization of new probiotic candidates isolated from traditional foods;

2. Use of new probiotic cultures for the functionalization of food products;

3. Impact of the functional foods on the change of the human microbiome through metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches;

4. Characterization of products and by-products useful as functional ingredients;

5. Development and production at pilot scale and industrial scale of new functional foods, their characterization with a chemical-physical and microbiological approach and consumer evaluation;

6. Food plants design and optimization;

7. Energy assessment of product chain and impact of renewable sources;

8. Evaluation and use of sustainable materials for the packaging of food products.

Research Facilities

• Microbiological laboratories equipped for conventional and molecular analysis

• Cell lines laboratory for the assessment of the host-probiotic interaction

• Chemical laboratory equipped for conventional analysis and instrument for food characterization (capillary GC, GC-MS, HPLC-DAD/RI, HPLC-MS, electronic nose, electronic tongue)

• Sensory laboratory

• Postharvest lab equipped for storage and pack food (cold rooms, MAP, Flowpack)

• Mechatronics lab for prototypes of sensors, actuators and small plants development and testing

Research Group

Prof. Vincenzo GERBI - Graduated in Agricultural Science at University of Turin. Since 2000 was Associate Professor at DISAFA (Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Science), from 2005 is full professor of Enology and Food science and technology.His researches focused mainly on oenology and innovative processes for territorial food products technologies. He has published over two hundred scientific papers dedicates in particulary to wine technologies. From the year 2006 to date: director of the University Master in “Food Sciences and Technologies and Human Nutrition-Michele Ferrero”. From 1989 he is member of the “Italian Academy of Vine and Wine” of Siena.

E-mail: vincenzo.gerbi@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Prof. Luca Simone COCOLIN - Bachelor degree in Food Science; PhD in Food Biotechnology; From November 1, 2001: Assistant professor at the University of Udine, Italy; From October 1, 2006: Associate professor at the University of Turin, Italy. Executive Board Member of the International Committee on Food Microbiology and Hygiene, part of the International Union of Microbiological Societies, and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Food Microbiology. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Applied and Environmental Microbiology. He is co-author of more of 150 papers on national and international journals. Expert in the field of food fermentations and more specifically in the application of culture independent molecular methods for the study of the microbiota of fermented foods and on the selection of new probiotics from traditional fermented foods.

E-mail: lucasimone.cocolin@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/persone/luca.cocolin

Prof. Giuseppe ZEPPA - Graduated in Agricultural Science at University of Turin. Since 2010 is Associate Professor at DISAFA (Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Science), Food Technology Laboratory. He is member of the Editorial Board of Food Quality and author or co-author for more than 300 scientific papers on national and international journals. The research activity is devoted to the study of chemical and sensory analysis of foods. Main topics are the study of cheese flavours, the study of relationship between technology and chemical/sensorial characteristics of foods, the use of gas-chromatography for food analysis, the food characterization between the sensory analysis, the consumer science.

E-mail: giuseppe.zeppa@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/persone/giuseppe.zeppa

http://www.giuseppezeppa.it

Dr. Luca ROLLE - Degree in Agricultural Science at the Faculty of Agricultural Science of the University of Turin. He works at University of Turin and currently carries out his activity at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Science as research fellow in Food Science and Technology. Member of the Italian Society of Food Sciences and Technologies (SISTAL), American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) and Italian Society of Viticulture and Enology (SIVE).

Expert of instrumental analytical techniques (HPLC, Texture Analysis, colorimetry, NIR spectroscopy) applied to the study of oenological and agro-food products. Co-Editor of Italian Journal of Food Science. Peer reviewer of scientific journals. Peer reviewer of Italian and international research projects. Author and/or co-author of about 350 scientific and technical publications.

E-mail: luca.rolle@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/persone/lucagiorgiocarlo.rolle

Dr. Kalliopi RANTSIOU - 1993-1997: BS degree in Biology, University di Athens, Greece; 1997-2002: PhD in Food Science, University of California, Davis (USA); 2002- 2004: Research fellow at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Udine, Italy; 2004-2005: Scientific expert on microbial risks in food, Hellenic Food Authority, Greece; 2006-2008: Research fellow at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Turin, Italy; 2008: Assistant professor Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences (DISAFA), University of Turin, Italy. She is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Food Microbiology and ad hoc reviewer for major food microbiology scientific journals. Her research interests include molecular biology as well as methods for detection, identification and characterization of food related microorganisms, and the use of culture independent methods to study the microbiota of fermented foods. She is co-author of more than 70 papers in national and international journals.

Email: kalliopi.rantsiou@unito.it

Website: http://www.unito.it/persone/kalliopi.rantsiou

Dr. Paola DOLCI - Bachelor degree in Biological Sciences; PhD in Biology and Biotechnology of Fungi. From January 1, 2005: Assistant professor at the University of Torino, Italy. Author and co-author of more than 40 papers on national and international journals. Reviewer for International Journal of Food Microbiology, Dairy Science and Technology, Annals of Microbiology. Expert in the field of dairy fermentation and, in particular, in microbiological characterization of traditional dairy products to formulate starter cultures. Moreover, expert in the use of colture-dependent and –independent methods for the study of fermented products.

E-mail: paola.dolci@unito.it

http://agraria-offdid.campusnet.unito.it/do/docenti.pl/Show?_id=pdolci;s...

Dr. Manuela GIORDANO - Bachelor degree in Chemistry, PhD in Agronomy, Forestry and Food Sciences at University of Turin. Since 2008, she is confirmed researcher at DISAFA (Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Science), Food Technology Section. Main research activity is focused on food chemistry, in particular chemical analysis of fermented dairy products and beverages, applied to the research of chemical indices for the quality and traceability of transformed products. She works on sample preparations, qualitative and quantitative analytical-instrumental aspects, specifically in gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry technique, as well as the optimization of analytical methods to evaluate different biochemical markers in food products. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Food Research International. Member of the Italian Society of Food Sciences and Technologies (SISTAL).

E-mail: manuela.giordano@unito.it

http://agraria-offdid.campusnet.unito.it/do/docenti.pl/Show?_id=magiorda...

Dr. Valentina ALESSANDRIA - Degree in Food Science and Technology and PhD in Agricultural Forestry and Food Science with a thesis focused on Listeria monocytogenes. From October 2012, researcher at the University of Turin, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Science, Microbiology sector. She is co-author of more than 25 papers on national and international journals. Her main research interests focused on the use of traditional and molecular methods in the study of fermented products, the characterization of lactic acid bacteria strains and pathogen bacteria as Listeria monocytogenes.

E-mail: valentina.alessandria@unito.it

http://agraria-offdid.campusnet.unito.it/do/docenti.pl/Show?_id=valessan

Prof. Paolo GAY - Degree in Electrical Engineering; Ph.D. in Systems and Control Engineering received from Politecnico di Torino. Since 2000 he is with the University of Turin, where he is currently serving as an Associate Professor. He is also Research Fellow at IEIIT-CNR (Italian National Research Council), Italy - since 2011, and to date-, and member in the Editorial Board of Biosystems Engineering Journal. He is co-author of more than 140 papers in peer reviewed Journals and conference proceedings. He has been awarded of the European Society of Agricultural Engineers Outstanding Paper Award 2010. His research interests are in the field of applied engineering, robotics & automation and optimization for bio-productions and food plants.

E-mail: paolo.gay@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Dr. Davide RICAUDA - Degree in Electronic Engineering at Politecnico di Torino and Ph.D. in Agricultural Forest and Food Sciences from the University of Torino. Since 2010 he is Assistant Professor at the University of Turin, DISAFA Department. He is author and co-author of more than fifty papers. He is expert in modelling and optimization of food plants, Robotics and Automation for bio-production and application of computer vision for food quality control.

E-mail: davide.ricauda@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Dr. Enrico FABRIZIO - Degree in Architectural Sciences at the Politecnico di Torino, Ph.D. in Energy Technology from the Politecnico di Torino, Ph.D. in Gènie Civil from the INSA de Lyon. Since 2008 he is Assistant Professor of Farm Buildings at the University of Turin, DISAFA Department. He is author and co-author of more than 100 papers on thermal building physics and environmental control for the energy efficiency of buildings and processes. Various papers treat the study and optimization of multi-source multi-product systems exploiting renewable energy sources.

E-mail: enrico.fabrizio@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Prof. Cristiana PEANO - Degree in in Agricultural Science at University of Turin.. Since 2000 he is with the University of Turin, where he is currently serving as an Associate Professor. Research activities was mainly focused on the on the post-harvest area (with more than 110 publications). The driver of all research activity is the adoption of innovation in the management of fruit production and process that can be able to fulfill sustainability criteria (economical, ecological and social). Smart integration of multidisciplinary aspect such as physiological, safety, and instrumental and sensory quality measurement concepts is essential to develop the most effective handling procedures and innovative technologies for maintaining quality and shelf stability of fruit products.

Email: cristiana.peano@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Dr. Marta BERTOLINO - Researcher at the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Science (DISAFA) Food Technology sector, University of Turin, Italy. She graduated with a MSc in Agricultural Science and Technology in 2003 and a PhD in Agricultural, Forestry and Food Science in 2007. She was appointed to the academic staff of University of Turin in 2008 as researcher. She teaches food quality and safety, bread technology, territorial food technology and dairy technology at the Turin University. The theme of her research is Dairy Technology with particular reference to proteolysis during ripening and the chemical characterization of PDO cheese and the chemical and technological characterisation of by-products. She is author or co-author of 50 scientific publication of international and/or national interesting. Since 2008 she is member of Italian Food Science and Technology Society (SISTAL).

E-mail: marta.bertolino@unito.it

http://www.unito.it/unitoWAR/page/dipartimenti9/D106/D106_personale_batc...

Dott. Raffaele BORRELLI - Degree in Chemistry at the University of Naples “Federico II”; PhD in Chemistry at the University of Salerno. From 2005-2006 he was a researcher at the Italian Center for Aerospace Research; in 2009-2010 he was an invited researcher at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany. From 2006 to 2011 he was assistant professor at the University of Salerno, and since 2011 he is assistant professor at the University of Turin. His main research field is the development of microscopic models for the simulation of spectroscopical properties of molecular systems.

E-mail: raffaele.borrelli@unito.it

http://www.personalweb.unito.it/raffaele.borrelli