Tecnológico de Monterrey students interested in the program, please address any questions about the application process to Dr. Juan José Cabrera Lazarini at jcabrera@tec.mx.
Faculty Name: Da Chen
E-Mail: chen3370@purdue.edu
Project Term: Fall 2024 and/or Spring 2025
Project Description:
By 2060, human population will be expected to increase more than 50%, whereas the farmland area has reached its maximum. Recovery of nutrients from byproducts generated during food production and re-use them in human foods has been considered as an effective approach to reduce the risk of food shortage in the future. For every 1 kg of soybean used in manufacturing soy milk and tofu, ~1.1-1.2 kg of residue (okara) is produced. Due to its high moisture content (70-80%), okara becomes perishable rapidly which makes it costly to store for food industries. They either discard it or sell it as an undervalued ingredient for animal feed. Okara has ~15-33% proteins (dry basis) containing all of the essential amino acids. Nevertheless, extraction of proteins from okara has been challenging due to their low water solubility and the barrier of the surrounding cell walls. It is thus a critical need to develop technique that could efficiently increase the solubility of proteins and degrade the cell walls in okara for enhanced protein recovery. In the proposed project, we aim to screen the fungi species and build the optimized fermentation condition to pre-treat okara to maximize the yield of protein extraction. The physicochemical properties, functionality and digestibility of the extracted proteins will also be assessed followed by potential application as ingredient to develop plant-based meat. The potential student will contribute to the condition optimization of fermentation, physiochemical properties characterization, and meat analog product development. His/her responsibility includes literature review, experimental design, investigation, data analysis and manuscript drafting.
Requirements:
Desired course work:
(1) Food chemistry
(2) Food Processing
(3) Food analysis
(4) Food product development
(5) Data analysis
Special skills
(1) Critical thinking
(2) A team player
(3) Good communication skills
(4) Attention to detail
(5) Technical skills (protein analysis, data analysis and plotting)
Training or experience
(1) At least one semester hands-on experience on research project
(2) Involved in food product development
Faculty Name: Thaisa Cantu-Jungles
E-Mail: tcantuju@purdue.edu
Project Term: Fall 2024
Project Description:
The project focuses on selecting dietary fibers based on their physico-chemical properties to promote specific gut microbial groups beneficial for human health. It comprises two stages: an in vitro experimentation phase and a human clinical trial. The undergraduate student will collaborate with a PhD student on dietary fiber extraction and characterization as well as conducting in vitro fecal fermentation experiments, analyzing short-chain fatty acids, and performing DNA extraction. During the clinical trial phase, the undergraduate student will assist in recruiting participants, conducting fermentation experiments, and gathering and analyzing data. This work will be under the guidance of Professors Thaisa Cantu-Jungles and Bruce Hamaker in the Food Science Department. Part of the clinical trial will take place at the Purdue Clinical Research Center (CRC).Requirements:
Desired qualifications include training or experience in one of the following: