I’m a food scientist. After 20 years of career at  the University of Naples as professor in Biochemistry, Food Chemistry and Functional Foods, from 2013 I  became chair of the Food Quality & Design group and Editor in Chief of Journal of Functional Food from 2017. https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-functional-foods/

I’m authors of more than 380 publications on indexed journals covering many aspects of Food science. These papers received more than 15.000 citations and I have an h index of 61. I’m one of the few Wageningen scientists constantly listed in the Thomson Reuter list of the “Highly Cited” https://recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2019/

The focus of my research is on the design of innovative healthy foods adopting a chain perspective from the selection of raw materials, through processing and formulation up to the physiological functionality and consumer behavior.

I’m well known at international level for the studies on the modification induced by food processing and in particular for all aspects related to Maillard Reaction.

HEALTHY FOOD DESIGN

Food healthiness is one of the main driver in the creation and marketing of new food products. Different strategies can be pursued to design healthy foods such as the adoption of new ingredients having potential health benefits or the implementation of production processes to optimize the formation of desired compounds and to reduce the formation of those potentially harmful. Also foods targeted at specific categories can be designed: children, pregnant women, elderly, sportsman, students population. Finally foods intended for the prevention of specific pathological conditions can be developed: foods for weight management, osteoporosis,  gut health, mental performance and so on.

Objective

To design healthy foods looking at the different point of the production chain from raw materials to consumer satisfaction.

To use formulation and processing strategies for the development of foods  tailored for different health benefits

Evaluate the possibility to introduce new ingredients having additional health functionality over those already claimed

To develop in vitro models for the systematic design of functional food for the benefit of gastrointestinal  tract

To control the development of Maillard Reaction minimizing the formation of potentially dangerous products and increasing the formation of desired 

Master of Science in Chemistry at the University of Rome "La Sapienza”.

PhD in Food Science Corvinus University of Budapest