// Latest Posts

Making better proteins: an interview with Kamil Szepe

Kamil Szepe is a first-year PhD student, part of the Future Proteins Platform. Their project is titled: Improving the nutritional quality of future protein and they are supervised by Dr Simon Avery, Prof Paul Dyer, Dr Rebecca Ford, and Dr Cormac O’Shea. Kamil’s PhD investigates the effects that nutritional composition of growth media and induction …

Using Bambara groundnut for animal feed: an interview with Tee Ann Jo

Ann Jo Tee completed her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology in 2018 and she is currently a first year MPhil/PhD student, part of the Future Proteins Platform. She is very interested in studying microbiology and has a strong passion to explore more about the potential applications of microorganisms in biotechnology industry. Her current research area mainly …

Working with worms: an interview with Dr Carlos Lopez Viso

Carlos Lopez Viso is a postdoctoral researcher on the Future Proteins Platform. He is working on the production of mealworms as a new source of sustainable proteins for aquaculture. In order to do that, he is applying genetic techniques to modify the protein and fat content of these insects. Prior to joining the Future Food …

Understanding micronutrient deficiencies for better health: an interview with Dr Molly Muleya

Molly Muleya is a postdoctoral researcher on the Future Protein’s Platform. Molly’s research examines the protein and mineral digestibility from foods of dietary and planetary importance. Her research is at the interface of agriculture, food science, nutrition and health and seeks to understand factors across the food chain, that modify protein and mineral bioavailability of …

The Future Proteins Platform

Protein is an essential part of the human diet, providing an important building block for the body, as well as being used to build and repair tissue. As populations become increasingly wealthy, and urbanised, so the way they consume protein changes. Increased demand for meat, fish and dairy products is seen throughout the world as …

Producing future proteins sustainably: an interview with Prof Andy Salter

Andy Salter is a Professor in Nutritional Biochemistry and is leading the Future Proteins Platform, a £1 million Innovation Challenge project funded by the Future Food Beacon. Andy has worked extensively on the molecular mechanisms whereby diet impacts upon lipid metabolism and metabolic disease, particularly cardiovascular disease. In parallel, he has developed a research portfolio …

Changing commensality during the crisis: the Nottingham Social Eating Network and Covid-19

This post is written by Marsha Smith. The Nottingham Social Eating Network and its community food partners in the city mobilised to meet the rising demand for food aid support during the early stages of lockdown. In this post, I reflect on how the values of ‘social eating’ initiatives are being translated into emergent, localised …

A PhD placement with AB InBev in the USA

Jasmine Littler is a BBSRC-iCASE funded PhD candidate in the School of Biosciences. Her project is titled: Enhancing barley environmental stress tolerance through targeted mutagenesis. She is supervised by Dr Guillermina Mendiondo and co-supervised by Prof David Cook. As part of her PhD programme, Jasmine visited the AB InBev Barley Research Centre in Fort Collins, …

Understanding oil crop sustainability: An interview with Dr Thomas Alcock

Dr Thomas Alcock is a postdoctoral researcher with the Future Food Beacon, researching oil crops and sustainability. Prior to this role, he held a Future Food Doctoral award, in which he worked on identifying the genetic basis of magnesium uptake in Brassica crops, with the hope of developing more nutritious vegetables. Here, he shares with …

The Perfect Storm: Environmentally and Socially Unsustainable Seafood Supply Chains

This post is written by Lee Matthews, Lucy McCarthy and Anne Touboulic. Seafood supply chains sustain three billion people nutritionally and also provide 10% of the world’s population with employment, the vast majority of whom are small-scale fisher-people. Seafood provides access to safe protein for many of the world’s most economically marginalised people but these …