Food Biotechnology Research Team

Our goals aim to create and transfer basic knowledge, and also to develop potential technologies for increasing global competitiveness of food and feed industries in Thailand. We also promote and support the utilization of biotechnology to upgrade food manufacturing standards in all private-sector production levels for achieving the higher quality and safety of products.

Food biotechnology research team has focused on several research and development areas as follows: functional proteins, functional lipids, functional carbohydrates, starter cultures, probiotics, prebiotics, antimicrobials, meat science and technology. Our technology platforms include, for example, animal cell culture testing platform, advanced chemical analysis platform for functional metabolites and compounds using advanced analytical instruments, and in vitro dynamic gastrointestinal model platform for investigating bioaccesibility and bioavailability in the stomach and small intestine, and for investigating short-chain fatty acid production and changes in gut microbiomes in the large intestine. These technology platforms can help accelerating food innovation including functional foods, functional ingredients, specify foods, and also safety evaluation of the products for food and feed industries.

Services provided

Research and Development

Our past experiences in food and feed industries as a research and development team for collaborative research with private sectors included starter cultures, enzymes, functional ingredients, nutraceuticals as well as food safety/risk assessment. Not only does we focus on laboratory scale, but also to translate that knowledge into a commercial scale practice using our integrative approach.

Basic Scientific Equipment:

1. Bioreactor
2. Real-Time PCR (Bio-Rad)
3. Digital Droplet PCR (Bio-Rad)
4. Multimode Microplate Reader (Tecan)
5. Animal cell Culture Facility
6. ChemiDoc/GelDoc (Bio-Rad)
7. Texture Analyzer (Stable Micro Systems)
8. Colorimeter (Minolta)
9. Viscometer (Brookfield)
10. Gas Chromatography-Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry (GC-QQQ / Agilent)
11. Gas Chromatography-Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (GC-GC-QTOF-FID-FPD / Agilent)
12. Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionization (GC-FID / Shimadzu)
13. High Performance Liquid Chromatography-DAD-Fluorescence (HPLC-DAD-Flu / Waters)
14. High Performance Anion Exchange Chromatography with PAD (HPAEC-PAD / Thermo Scientific)
15. Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography with UV (FPLC)
16. Preparative Liquid Chromatography with RI and UV (Prep-LC)
17. Microwave Digestion & Synthesis (Anton Paar)
18. Tiny-TIM and TIM-2 (Advanced Dynamic In vitro Gastrointestinal Models / TIM)
19. Anaerobic workstation (DG500/ Whitley, BACTRON 600/Sheldon)

Microbial and Enzymatic Technology for Food and Feed Applications

Development of starter culture for food applications such as fermented pork sausage, Vinegar cider, pickled mustard green
Development of starter culture for feeds (digestive enhanced soybean and silage starter cultures)
Pentosanase for feed applications (digestive enhancer)
Acceleration production process for fish sauce production
Improvement of soy sauce production and quality
Lactic acid bacterial screening and production
Histamine reduction in foods using bacteria

Functional Ingredients, Nutraceuticals and Specialty foods

eLysozyme production from egg white as alternative food preservatives and antibiotics
Eggshell membrane hydrolysate and bioCalcium from eggshell by-product
Development of mung bean protein recovery and purification from glass noodle production by-product
Development of shelf-stable high-whey protein ready to drink using retort
Gluten-free flour mix for pizza
Development of blenderized diet for bedridden patients.

Risk Assessment and Food Safety

Technology for tracking starter cultures using fluorescent Protein and DNA fingerprint
Histamine Risk Assessment for CODEX approval
Risk assessment of food-borne pathogen
Safety assessment of starter culture and probiotics

Contact

Atikorn Panya
Food Biotechnology Research Team (IFBT)
Functional Ingredients and Food Innovation Research Group

113 Thailand Science Park
Phahonyothin Road
Khlong Nueng, Khlong Luang
Pathum Thani 12120 Thailand