Description of the institution
The University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven was founded in 1975. With more than 3,000 students and 250 employees it is the largest institution for applied research in Bremerhaven. The Laboratory of Food Chemistry is part of the bachelor curriculum Food Technology/ Food Economy, representing the degree course with the most students at the University. The Laboratory is collaborating with the local and other food industries of the region.
The university is focussing on applied research and problem solving experimental setups.
Role in the project
Within the GRAIL Project the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven (UASB) will be responsible for the biotechnological conversion of glycerol to high added value compounds for food application purposes. For these activities the Department of Food Chemistry will cooperate with the Department of Biotechnology. Initially UASB will obtain the microorganism of interest and produce preparatory cultures and forward them to the corresponding beneficiaries for further use. Therefore a fully equipped biotechnology laboratory is available.
The laboratory possesses several fermentation vessels from 1 L up to 50 L, with the option to control several conditions, for instance pH.
Key personnel
Prof. Dr. Hauke Hilz, who will supervise the work at UASB, has studied food chemistry at the University of Hamburg, where he finished in 2002. He did his PhD studies at Wageningen University until 2007. In 2008 he received the Gerhard-Billek-Price of the German Chemical Society for the best PhD thesis in 2007. From 2007-2010 Hilz worked at ttz Bremerhaven as team leader and coordinated several EU projects, for instance NANODETECT, EAN-SEABUCK, QualiJuice, and BrainHealthFood. In his working the EU projects Chill-On, GRUB’s UP, Bioactive-Net, Freshlable, HighTechEurope, and Nafispak were either coordinated or participated.
Dipl.-Ing. Kolja Knof studied food technology at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven. He worked as senior project manager at ttz Bremerhaven from 2007-2012, were he coordinated the EU-projects GRUB’s UP and SO2SAY. From 2013 he works at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven as member of the scientific staff. Since 2008 he is PhD student at the University Bremen, where he prepares his PhD Thesis in the field of epidemiology. His research interests are novel protein sources with a particular focus on protein quality and characterisation. The project team is completed by Dipl.-Ing. Gunda Merkle, also food technologist, with more than 20 years of work experience in food analytics laboratories. The biotechnological work will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Matthias Nagel, who possess nearly 30 years of experience in the field of biotechnology.
He is supported by Dipl.-Ing. Kathrin Pauper (food technologist) who will be responsible for the practical work in the GRAIL Project.