Research topics

If we take identified scientific research potentials of the Faculty into consideration, along with the interest that the broader social community might have in scientific research in the fields of biotechnical and natural science, which is based on the most recent documents, strategies and guidelines, in the period of up to 2020, the scientific research and scientific expert projects, that the Faculty is going to be involved in, are going to be focused on the following research subjects:

 

1. Development of new technological procedures in food production

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · Explore and develop new technological procedures in order to increase safety and quality of food production, taking into consideration aspects of economy, ecology and energy efficiency;
  • · Explore, develop and apply new procedures of bioactive elements extraction, which are of plant and animal origin;
  • · Develop and valorize new food products of increased nutritive value(functional food);
  • · Develop and valorize products for specific dietary needs and products  aimed at targeted groups of consumers;
  • · Research chemical and biocatalytical synthesis of aromas and flavours.

 

2. Development of analytical methods in quality control and safety of food

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · Develop new analytical methods to identify food safety related microbiological and chemical hazards;
  • · Develop new analytical methods for the processes of food production control, quality control and identification of targeted bioactive food components based on contemporary high-resolution separation techniques;
  • · Develop simple and fast analytical methods which will determine targeted analytes in food and  monitor food alterations during production, processing and warehousing, and which are going to use selective chemical sensors and biosensors, i.e. statistical analysis of global (multidimensional) analytical signal received through a number of complementary sensors or by combining two or more analytical techniques.  

 

3. Nutrition and nutrigenomics

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · Apply dietary, in vivo and in vitro methods while researching the correlation between  intake of nutritive and protective non-nutritive food components, foods, diet patterns, which have nutritional and health status, in order to understand better the correlation between diet, health and improvement of food quality of specific population groups;
  • · Contribute to the most recent research topics on both national and international level, such as researches on nutritive status and vitamin D intake, which is identified as a critical micronutrient that has not been sufficiently explored, and researches on mediterranean diet and traditionally eaten food;
  • · Develop methods which assess quality of nutrition and nutritive status and methods which evaluate the effect that functional foods have on human health;
  • · Apply bioinformatics, genomics, metabolomics and proteomics in the researches of various food science aspects;
  • · Apply theories on databases and statistics in order to collect, store, interpret and analyse data and to apply computer tools as a mathematical processes aid for acquisition of new information.

 

4. Development and selection/ construction of biotechnologically important microorganism strains

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · Isolate, identify and characterize new autochtonous microorganism strains / starter cultures and their defined technological and / or functional features, along with the possibility of their application;
  • · Explore the activity of new probiotic cultures and the possibility of their application
  • · Apply the existing and develop new bioinformatic methods with the aim of targeted development and construction of industrially important strains;
  • · Conduct researches in the fields of molecular biology and molecular genetics in order to construct new microorganism strains by genetic engineering methods;
  • · Develop systems for the implementation of targeted genetic modifications and for studying of regulation mechanisms of microorganism gene expression, with the aim of constructing or improving the existing industrial strains in biotechnological processes.

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5. Production of biofuels and biochemicals from renewable raw materials

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · improve the existing and develop new industrial biotechnological processes for the production of biofuels and biochemicals;
  • · study kinetics of bioprocesses and develop mathematical models of bioprocesses for the production of biofuels and biochemicals;
  • · develop integrated biotechnological processes which associate the production process with „in situ“ extraction of biofuels and biochemicals while they are being produced;
  • · develop new biotechnological processes for waste water treatment and various industrial byproducts in order to obtain different chemicals out of waste water and industrial byproducts;
  • · define ecological, economic and energy sustainability of biotechnological processes for the production of biofuels and biochemicals.

 

6. Biotechnology in environment, water resources and sea protection

As a part of this scientific subject, the Faculty research groups are going to:

  • · Develop ecologically acceptable biocatalytical process through green solvents;
  • · Develop toxicological researches in environment protection by using plant, animal and human cellular cultures as well as other biological testing systems used in toxicology (of yeasts and bacteria);
  • · Develop and apply integrated reactor and / or separation systems for various bioprocesses in environment protection;
  • · Model mathematically contamination indicators of different city and industry ecosystems;
  • · Develop modern procedures in potable and process water production;
  • · Prepare low-molecular peptide gelators and examine their efficiency at geling of various organic contaminants in water.
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