FOOSAF - The Application of Modern Proteomic and Metabolomic Methodologies to the Assessment of FOOd SAFety

Food safety is central to any society, having important economic, social and environmental implications. International comparisons have shown that the European Union is the world's largest producer of food and drink products. It is not surprising therefore that the Agro-food sector has major importance/influence on the economy of Europe. The proposed research programme will give the Marie Curie Fellow (MCF) the opportunity to perform multidisciplinary activities that impact directly on food safety and its evaluation. Experimentally the project will utilise recent advances in mass spectrometry and data analysis/integration, to develop modern proteomic and metabolomic approaches suitable for use in the assessment of novel foodstuffs.
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To achieve these goals the following objectives will be addressed: (i) Development of quantitative proteomic method(s) and 'global' metabolomic approaches for use in the assessment of novel foodstuffs as both fresh and processed products, (ii) demonstrate the utility of the procedures on novel foods (iii) analysis the omic datasets using traditional independent statistical analysis (e.g. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), pairwise statistical analysis, and ANOVA and modern approaches emerging from Systems Biology for the visualisation of data (e.g. the overlaying data onto bespoke biochemical pathways) and integration (e.g. correlation analysis using Spearman and Pearson coefficients). Such a research programme will enable the MCF to acquire state of the art expertise in generic technologies, which are of strategic importance throughout Europe. The approaches developed will impact directly on the assessment of novel foodstuffs advancing the present state of the art in the field. There is perfect synergy between the applicant's background and hosts expertise, providing the foundations for a productive project, delivering scientific excellence and impact.