Professor Victor de Freitas

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Porto, Portugal

Keynote Title: Anthocyanin pigments: inspiration from nature’s chemistry lab

GROUPE POLYPHENOLS SPONSORED KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Professor Victor Freitas graduated in Chemistry from the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto (FCUP) in 1989. In 1995, he obtained his PhD in Biological and Medical Sciences in the University of Bordeaux II (France), specialization in Oenology. After his PhD, he returned to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (DQB) of FCUP where he has been developing his teaching and research activities. He is currently Full Professor in the University of Porto and member of the REQUIMTE-LAQV Research Centre where he has been developing an independent area of research involving polyphenol compounds. He has more than 370 original articles published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index, several book chapters, numerous invited conferences, running multiple I&DT projects and several supervisions of Master and PhD students. He was President of Groupe Polyphenols from 2016 to 2021.

Session: PHYTOCHEMISTRY and ANALYSIS

Dr. Anna-Katharine Mansfield

Department of Food Science, Cornell University, USA

Keynote Title: A Wine of a Different Color: Sensory Effects and Consumer Perception of Non-traditional Grape Wines

Anna Katharine Mansfield is the associate director of Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, NY, where she also serves as an associate professor of enology in the Cornell Craft Beverage Institute in the Department of Food Science. She received a BA in English from Salem College and graduate degrees in Food Science at Virginia Tech and the University of Minnesota. Mansfield served as Enology Project Leader at the University of Minnesota from 2001-2008, where she developed a new enology extension program to serve the rapidly-developing cold-climate wine industry in the Upper Midwest. She spent a sabbatical leave at the l’Institut Universitaire de la Vigne et du Vin Jules Guyot at the University of Burgundy investigating the potential of cork structures to sorb wine flavor compounds. Dr. Mansfield has been a member of the Cornell Enology Extension Lab since 2009, where she strives to aid regional wineries through outreach and applied research on wine phenolics and proteins, sensory perception, impact odorants, and regional typicity.

Session: PHYTOCHEMISTRY and ANALYSIS

Professor Samuel Brockington

Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK

Keynote Title: A tale of two pigments: the evolution of betalains and their mutual exclusion with anthocyanins

Samuel Brockington is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. He gained a BSc with 1st Class honours in Plant Science from the University of Edinburgh in 2002. He was awarded a PhD at the Florida Museum of Natural History, USA in 2009. The focus of his research group in the evolution of specialised metabolism, particularly betalain pigmentation in Caryophyllales and its curious relationship to anthocyanin pathways. Samuel is also Curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and responsible for over 8000 and 1.1 million specimens in the University Herbarium, including Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle collection. In this capacity, he promotes the use of diverse botanical collections for research and conservation, manages the acquisition of new items to the collections, and plans the future direction of the collections. Sam is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a member of the Botanical Society of America, and has been a Marie Curie Research Fellow, and NERC Independent Research Fellow.

Session: ECOLOGY, FUNCTION and EVOLUTION

Dr Stefan Martens

Research and Innovation Center, Area Food and Nutrition, Edmund Mach Foundation, Italy

Keynote Title: Anthocyanidin synthase – a critical and promiscuous step in pigment biosynthesis

Stefan Martens received the Diploma (Dipl. Ing) (1995) and PhD (2000) in Floriculture and Plant Breeding from Technical University of Munich (TUM). He worked as a postdoctoral researcher and habilitant in the lab of Ornamental Plants and Horticultural Plant Breeding at the TUM in Freising-Weihenstephan (2002-2002) and Pharmaceutical Biology at the Philipps University of Marburg (2002-2009). Since 2009 he has been Unit Head and senior researcher at the Edmund Mach Foundation for Biotechnology of Natural Products, Italy. He supervised 15 PhD students and 21 master students. Also, he has coordinated or participated as member of the research team at 26 funded national and international research projects. Until today he has published 125 scientific papers whereas he also participates at several National and International Conferences. His main research interests are focused on the biosynthesis of secondary/specialized metabolites in fruit crops and medicinal and aromatic plants using state-of-the-art -omics technologies (metabolomics, transcriptomics, genomics).

Session: BIOSYNTHESIS and GENETICS

Professor Yuanwen Teng

College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, China

Keynote Title: Research progress on the regulation mechanism of anthocyanin biosynthesis in pear fruit

Dr. Yuanwen Teng is a Professor at the College of Agriculture and Biotechnology of Zhejiang University, China. He serves on the editorial board member of BMC Plant Biology, Horticulturae and other Journals, and is the vice president of the Pear Branch of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science. He has long been engaged in research on fruit tree germplasm resources and breeding, plant genetic diversity, fruit tree biology, etc. His research areas include Pyrus phylogeny, Pyrus genetic diversity, pear cultivar differentiation, fruit coloration and quality formation of pear and mango, and pear dormancy, etc. He has published more than 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, Plant Biotechnology Journal, New Phytologist, The Plant Journal, Plant, Cell & Environment, Journal of Experimental Botany, Horticulture Research, etc. He has been granted more than 10 national invention patents. He is the winner of the second prize of the National Award for Sci-Tech Progress, and the first prizes of the Natural Science Award and the Technological Invention Award of the Ministry of Education of China. .

Session: BIOSYNTHESIS and GENETICS

Dr Christine Bösch

School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds, UK

Keynote Title: Contribution of betalain pigments to health and gut health – evidence from in vitro and in vivo studies

Dr Christine Bosch is Associate Professor in Nutrition, School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds, UK. Her main research interest is on the health benefits of phytochemicals and other functional plant food ingredients. A current focus is on the potential of different betalains to modulate molecular signalling, and their relevance to promote gut and overall health. Her recent research has been piloting the role of betalains to human and animal (gut) health and related mechanisms including gut microbiome. Other research is focussing on structure-function relationships of different anthocyanins and their metabolites to lower cardiometabolic risk. Recent and current funders include Innovate UK, WBANA, Algae UK/BBnet, BBSRC, N8AgriFood, EU-FP7 and others.

Session: HEALTH and NUTRITION

Dr Iva Fernandes

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Porto, Portugal

Keynote Title: Charting New Frontiers for skin Healthcare – Unveiling the Colour and Bioactivity of Anthocyanin and related Structures

Iva Fernandes is assistant Professor at Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto (FCUP). She has a degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Chemistry (2012) obtained at FCUP and since 2013 has been a member of the Food Quality and Technology Group from REQUIMTE-LAQV. Iva heads a research team dedicated to exploring the functions of phytochemicals in nutraceuticals, leveraging crucial advancements in comprehending their effects on human health, including their bioactivities and nutritional outcomes such as interactions within the gastrointestinal tract, bioaccessibility, digestibility, and their potential preventive effects against metabolic diseases. In this topic, she leads the workgroup Wine and Health from OENOVITI international network. Iva has also explored the incorporation of phytochemicals into cosmeceuticals and their ability to attenuate the natural skin aging process, as well as preventing skin related disorders. Additionally, her efforts are directed towards devising methodologies and discovering novel approaches to mitigate the undesirable characteristics of plant-based food products, particularly those stemming from nutrient deficiencies and excessive additive usage. She is a member of Colab4Food, a network dedicated to the implementation of innovation and sustainability of the food industry. Iva has published 78 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and has 5 book chapters. The dissemination of her knowledge has been achieved by the participation in (inter)national conferences and several invited talks. Her work has been recognized by (inter)national research facilities and food companies, with collaborations in several I&DT funded projects and several supervisions of Master and PhD students.

Session: APPLICATION in FOOD and INDUSTRY

Dr Carine Mané

Innovation Department, New Products team, Oterra, France

Keynote Title: Exploring vibrant world of Regulatory for Anthocyanins and Betalains

Dr Carine Mané graduated in Chemistry from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Toulouse (ENSIACET) in 2003, specialization in Agro-resources valorization. In 2007, she obtained her PhD in Food Science from Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Agronomie Montpellier working in National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAe Science for Oenology, France). After her PhD, she joined Chr Hansen Natural Colors division as pigment chemist where she conducted research first on polyphenols and anthocyanins and expanded expertise across various pigments. She is currently Manager of Research and Development team in Oterra A/S (born from divestment of Chr Hansen Natural Colors division), and contributes to taskforces in The Natural Food Color Association where she is developing an alternative and complementary prism to the scientific approach on pigments.

Session: APPLICATION in FOOD and INDUSTRY