Functional Foods and Biotechnology: Sources of Functional Foods and Ingredients

A two volume set that kick off the Food Biotechnology series, Functional Foods and Biotechnology combines the work of experts around that world to advance knowledge on bio-based innovations to improve wider health-focused applications of functional food and food ingredients. Volume I focuses on the recent advances in the understanding of the role of cellular, metabolic, and biochemical concepts and processing that are important and relevant to improve functional foods and food ingredients targeting human health benefits. Volume II highlights two important and interrelated themes: biotransformation innovations and novel bio-based analytical tools for understanding and advancing functional foods and food ingredients for health-focused food and nutritional security solutions

Key Features:

• Provides ecological and metabolic rational to integrate novel functional food and functional ingredient sources in wider health-focused food system innovations.
• Examines the value-added role of select functional foods and food ingredients to improve NCD-linked health benefits such as type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and human gut improvement
• Provides system science-based food biotechnology innovations to design and advance functional foods and food ingredients for solutions to emerging global food and nutritional insecurity coupled public health challenges.
• Discusses biotransformation innovations to improve human health relevant nutritional qualities of functional foods and food ingredients.

The overall goal of Volume I is to provide insights on role of these functional food and ingredient sources for their integration in wider health-focused food systems, which will help food scientists, food industry personnel, nutritionists, crop science researchers, public health professionals, and policy makers to make appropriate decisions and to formulate strategies for improving health and well-being. Volume II aims to advance the knowledge on metabolically-driven food system innovations that can be targeted to enhance human health and food safety relevant nutritional qualities and antimicrobial properties of functional food and food ingredients.

Dr. Kalidas Shetty's research interests focus on the critical role of cellular and metabolic basis of oxygen biology for advancing new innovations in life sciences and especially agricultural and food innovations that advance global food security and health in a sustainable environment. This focus is contributing to very innovative advances in the areas of crops for health, post-harvest biology, nutraceuticals, functional foods and food antimicrobial strategies as critical innovations to advance food security in addition to malnutrition and hunger challenges. In particular, he has developed an innovative “crops for health” research platform to counter diet-linked chronic diseases. The rationale of this platform has relevance for managing malnutrition challenges from maternal to child health needs globally.

Dipayan Sarkar, Ph.D, is a Research Associate at the Department of Plant Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota. He supervises research of graduate students and visiting scholars and work closely with local and global research, education, and outreach initiatives of the Global Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture (GIFSIA) at North Dakota State University. He received Bachelor in Agricultural Science (Hons.) and Master in Agronomy from India. Later he received Ph.D in “Plant Stress Physiology” from Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences at University of Massachusetts. He also worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Department of Food Sciences of University of Massachusetts under the tutelage of Dr. Kalidas Shetty. His research interest is on metabolic regulation of plant and development of sustainable cropping systems based on sound ecological rationale to address global food security and public health challenges. Dipayan has published 21 peer-reviewed research papers, 6 book chapters, and many other reviews and abstracts. He is a board member of the American Council of Medicinally Active Plants and affiliated advisor for Kagoshima University Center for International Planning, Kagoshima, Japan.