Sustainable Future Foods: Mechano-Enzymatic Assembly of Complex Food Structures

Soft Matter Biomaterials and Biointerfaces Team in collaboration with Diamond Light Source, Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre and Motif FoodWorks, a Massachusetts-based animal-free ingredient innovation company, are looking forward to train an early stage researcher to PhD level as part of a highly prestigious BBSRC DTP CASE PhD Studentship Programme. Designing sustainable foods requires novel plant-based ingredients that enable creating new textures, whilst unlocking product's functionality in the body. This calls for discovery and development of new fibre materials with highly ordered structures that mimic some of nature's most wondrous fibres such as silk, collagen and myofibrils.
This project seeks to discover and develop new methods for controlling enzymatic cross-linking during extensional flow and characterise ordered structures using small angle scattering and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, as well as diving into understanding fibre's mechanical and functional properties, focusing on applications in foods. The successful candidate will: 1) Research cross-linking reaction between proteins and polysaccharides (dietary fibre) and evaluate the impact of crosslinking on the rheological (flow) and mechanical properties of fibre. 2) Develop a new extensional flow sample environment system at the I22 Small Angle Scattering and Diffraction Beamline, Diamond Light Source, thus enabling measurements of biopolymer structuring during fluid elongation and formation of a fibre filament. 3) Characterise polymer and water dynamics using NMR spin relaxation and multi-scale imaging techniques at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre. 4) During a research experience placement at the lab facilities of Motif FoodWorks (Boston, MA, USA), research on enzyme functionality and synthetic biology-based approaches for identifying new targets for strain engineering and designing enzymes with targeted activity and specificity will be undertaken. The primary host of this Studentship is the Soft Matter Biomaterials and Biointerfaces (SMBB) Team at the University of Nottingham, School of Biosciences. SMBB is a highly dynamic, interdisciplinary team focusing on biomolecular composites, which underpin development of sustainable and healthy foods.
The successful candidate will be encouraged to participate in the activities of the British Society of Rheology, Institute of Physics Food Physics Group and European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPNOE). Previous experience in (bio)polymers, soft matter systems or colloids is highly appropriate. Experience of bimolecular characterisation and some level of COMSOL/MATLAB/Python skills are highly beneficial. The successful candidate will have a positive approach to collaborative research and the drive to make a significant contribution to innovation and sustainable food systems.