Martha Cuniberti

Martha Cuniberti is a Chemical Engineer and Doctor in Agricultural Sciences in Córdoba University. Argentina. Specialist in Cereal Science and Technology. Head and Technical Director of INTA Wheat and Soybean Quality Lab. ICC Latin American Region Founder and Representative, National Delegate, ICC Executive Committee Member and Academy Honorary Member. In 2007 she was the President of the 1st LACC in Rosario, Argentina. She has received important recognitions to her professional work inside and outside of the country and in 2008 received the “Friedrich Schweitzer Medal” to the prominent scientist in Madrid, Spain.

Her talk entitled Importance of argentine wheat production and quality in Latin America will be focused on: Argentina is the main producer and exporter wheat country of Latin America with a production of 18,4 million ton in 2017. It has genetics for specific uses and demands: red and white hard wheat for bread baking with three quality levels (98% of its production), durum wheat for pasta (1.5%), soft white wheat for biscuits and cakes and waxy wheat for modified starch industry. Since 1998 has an annual Official Crop Quality Report (www.trigoargentino.com.ar)

Caroline Sluyter

Caroline Sluyter holds a Master of Science in Agriculture, Food and Environment (Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Boston). Currently she is the Program Director of Whole Grains Council. She is responsible for creating and executing special whole grain promotions, and for planning and managing our biennial Whole Grains Conference. She also provides supervision and support to the Whole Grain Stamp program manager and manages the financial aspects of the Stamp program and delivers domestic and international presentations on whole grains and related topics to academic and industry audiences.

Her presentation is entitled “Making Whole Grains the New Norm: Changing Consumer Attitudes & Perceptions in Latin America and Around the World”. Despite overwhelming evidence that we should be eating more whole grains, populations around the world struggle to meet recommended levels of intake. This session will identify consumer perception challenges and will present several models of success for changing consumer attitudes. It will discuss strategies that any community can implement, no matter where its people fall on the continuum of whole grain acceptance.

Daniel Guerrero

Daniel Guerrero studied Nutrition and Food Sciences in the Iberoamerican University at Mexico City, afterwards he studied a master degree in Marketing and has 13 years of experience working for the food industry. Currently he manages Nutrition and Regulatory Affairs for Latin America in Cereal Partners Worldwide, a long standing partnership between General Mills and Nestlé to produce and commercialize the Nestle Breakfast Cereals, translating nutrition sciences into consumer understanding, ensuring regulatory compliance and guiding the company on their purpose of making breakfast better through the improvement of the nutrition profiles of products, promoting the benefits of breakfast and a diet sufficient in whole grains.

In his talk “Attitudes to whole grain foods, their benefits and liking: insights from consumers in Mexico, Colombia and a global perspective” he will cover an overview of the consumer perspective for whole grain, while it is relevant for them, they don’t know where to find it or how much to eat, highlighting the need to help consumers identify how much Whole Grains they should eat, identify Whole Grain food sources, educate them on its benefits and provide reassurance on the taste of Whole Grain options.

Julie Miller Jones

Julie Miller Jones is a Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus of nutrition in the Department of Family, Consumer and Nutritional Sciences at the St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She is a scientific advisor for many organizations including the EU HealthGrain Platform on Whole Grains, Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre, the Joint Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition for the University of Maryland and the US Food and Drug Administration, the carbohydrate committee of the International Life Sciences Institute of North America, the Grains Food Foundation, and the California Fig Advisory Board. Also, Jones is actively involved in trying to educate the consumer against frauds and myths in nutrition and food safety; she has authored Food Safety (Eagan Press) and edited a book Dietary Fibre: Food and Feed and Bio-active Ingredients.

Her talk “Whole Grains: Just for the Health of It” Julie will speak about the benefits of whole grains. Those eating diets with the right balance of whole grains and refined grains show repeatedly in epidemiological studies to be associated with reduced risk for most diseases. In nearly all epidemiological studies the grain foods ingested are designated by the NOVA scheme as ‘processed’ or ‘ultraprocessed’. Diets that recommend consumers avoid processed and ultraprocessed foods could impair intake of various nutrients, dietary fiber, grains and whole grains. Consumers need to be encouraged to choose all forms of grains and select the right balance of whole and refined grains as part of a balanced diet for optimal health and reduced risk of disease.

Cristina M Rosell

Cristina M Rosell is a Full Research Professor in the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA) that belongs to the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). In 2015 she was appointed Director of IATA. She is also an Associated Professor of the University of Valencia (UV). She has been involved in numerous National, European and International research projects related to cereals and baked goods. She developed an extensive activity in transferring knowledge through a close cooperation with stakeholders mainly dealing with the inclusion of cereals in the human diet through developing innovative and sensory accepted cereal based products based on comprehensive utilization and rational modulation of their biochemical and rheological properties. She is the President of Spanish Association of Cereal Science and Technology (AETC), and member of the American Association for Cereal Chemists (AACC). Regarding scientific activities, she has more than two hundred international peer reviewed scientific publications and book chapters on the cereals topic. Main research topics include: to enhance the marketability and healthfulness of cereals and grains commodities and processed products to meet consumer and producer demands. Biochemistry, rheology, quality and nutritional attributes, and consumer preferences are main areas of research. A holistic approach is applied in all the research projects.

In her talk entitled “making healthier cereal foods by applying physical treatments”, she would like to share with all attendees the benefits of consuming bread and the alternatives we have to improve them nutritionally by using nutritious raw materials. In addition, approaches to physically modulate the digestibility properties of the resulting breads will be discussed.

Juan de Dios Figueroa

Dr. Figueroa (Juan) works with the Bio-organic Materials group at CINVESTAV (Center for Research and Advanced Studies campus Querétaro, Mexico), before that he worked 9 years for the malting and brewing industry in Mexico. He has published more than 180 scientific articles and 26 patents, some of which are in commercial use around the world. Juan explores the basic principles that govern functionality of grains for industrial applications, especially for tortilla, malting, brewing and wheat. His areas of special expertise are the Maxwell (stress relaxation) and Kelvin-Voigt (creep) generalized models as well as dynamic rheology (G´and G’’) for studying visco-elastic properties, and high fiber-low fat tortillas to prevent obesity, diabetes type II and cardiovascular diseases; Ultrasound, Microwave, Infrared and other non-conventional energies in grains and food processing. For characterization of bio-materials he uses FTIR, Impedance, ultrasound, X-ray diffractions, SEM, DSC, ohmic heating among other techniques. In the last 6 years he received the Texture Technology Award from AACC International. In 2012, 4th International Nixtamalization Congress awarded him with “Dios Yum Kaax” for developing an ecological nixtamalization process to produce whole-grain corn tortilla and the award “Francisco Vela” from San Carlos University of Guatemala. Juan also received the “Premio Alejandrina” (award) 2012 for the elaboration of Intelligent nanoparticles for encapsulation, and controlled release of bioactive compounds. In 2014 he got the Carl Wilhem Brabender award from AACC International. He graduated from North Dakota State University (M.Sc. and PhD in Cereal Science & Technology) and (B.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry) from “Universidad de Tamaulipas” Mexico.

His talk “Evolution of nixtamalization process: advantages and disadvantages” is about nixtamalization. Nixtamalization is perhaps the most important technology for processing thousands of corn products for human consumption. Today, with the increasing of popularity of Mexican foods around the world, there is scientific interest in the topic. During nixtamalization changes at protein, starch and lipid levels are important for ensuring quality of end-products. He will present a summary of those technological developments.

Larisa Cato

Larisa Cato is a cereal chemist and grain researcher, well versed in the wheat quality requirements of Australian international markets. Larisa is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of wheat quality and end product requirements. Larisa possesses a unique set of skills combining scientific, technical and market expertise. Prior to joining AEGIC, Larisa worked as an Asian Product Specialist with AWB Ltd. and with the Department of Agriculture and Food WA to ensure the WA wheat industry was internationally competitive.

Her talk “Sponge & dough baking with australian wheat” will discuss typical baking processes used in SEA, addressing wheat quality requirements to match desired product quality. Specifically the presentation will discuss use of Enzymes in a sponge & dough baking system to improve end product quality. Bread quality will be discussed in terms of bread volume, crumb structure and crumb softness.

Luis Arturo Bello

Luis Arturo Bello has been professor for more than 30 years at the Center for Development of Biotic Products of at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional located at Yautepec, Morelos, Mexico. He has been responsible of developing mainly with external funds the best research center for starch and other polysaccharides research in this country. Dr. Bello has developed research ties with many professors associated to universities in Mexico and distributed throughout the globe. He spent several years performing postdoctoral and research residences in the USA (Purdue University and University of Illinois), France (INRA-NANTES), England (University of Nottingham). He has published more than 300 papers in refereed recognized international journals, mostly on his main area of expertise: starch/polysaccharides chemistry and technology and their implications on human health. His publications with a current h factor of 36 have been cited more than five thousand times according to the data base of Scopus. He has become one of the main starch scientists worldwide and reached the most prominent positions in the Mexican National Research System (SNI III) and Mexican Academy of Sciences. He has been associate editor for relevant Journals such as Cereal Chemistry, Starch/Starke, J. Cereal Sci., J. Sci. Food & Agric., Plant Foods for Human Nutrition, CyTA-Journal of Food and Revista Mexicana de Ingenieria Quimica. As a result of his scientific impact, Dr. Bello has been the recipient of many distinguished awards including the national “Coca Cola Award” for the most prominent Mexican food scientist.

His talk “Retrospective study of starch digestibility in corn tortilla” will be focused on starch. Starch digestion in foods is a topic that has been increased the interest due to its relationship with health problems. Tortilla is a starchy food and its consumption was related to high starch digestibility with the concomitant increase of glucose supply to the blood; however, tortilla can contain resistant and slowly digestible starch, both associated with some health benefits.

Luis Alberto Ramírez Barajas

Luis Alberto Ramírez Barajas is currently a Industry Technology Specialist of Food & Nutrition and Baking in Novozymes México. More than 8 years of experience in the design, development and implementation of product development projects focused on the baking area, dairy industry and products based on chili and emulsions. Leader of different technology transfer projects and process adaptation. Experience in research on emerging technologies projects for vegetables conservation. Food Engineer from Tecnológico de Monterrey.

His presentation “Introduction to baking enzymes” will give information on basic enzyme chemistry, how enzymes are produced and utilized in variety of baking applications.

Jos van Boxtel

Jos van Boxtel holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences/Plant Breeding from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His Ph.D. research work was conducted at CIRAD, Montpellier, France, studying the genetic transformation of coffee. From 1995 to 1999 he was a post-doc studying virus resistance in cowpea through genetic engineering at the John Innes Centre in the UK. From 1999 to 2002, he returned to CIRAD, this time studying salt and drought tolerance in rice through genetic engineering. And before joining Arcadia in 2003, he had worked at UC Davis on salt tolerant rice. In addition to production of transgenic plants for the various Arcadia projects, his Plant Transformation Group works on innovating plant gene modification techniques which can be used for enhancing environmental and health benefits of agricultural crops. Currently, Jos is leading projects to develop non-GM low gluten wheat and heat stress tolerant wheat at Arcadia.

His presentation entitled “Enhancing shelf life and flavor of whole wheat flour” will be focused on: Reducing the production of bitter and rancid compounds that accumulate during whole wheat flour storage could help improve consumer acceptance, consumption of whole grain wheat products and benefit millers and bakers by increasing the shelf life. New wheat varieties with these characteristics have been developed using TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes), a non-transgenic method for novel trait development.

Senay Simsek

Dr. Senay Simsek is a professor at North Dakota State University (NDSU). She moved to the USA in 2002 and started her PhD in Food Science at Purdue University. She completed her PhD in December 2006 and started working as an assistant professor in Plant Sciences Department at NDSU in January 2007. She has leadership position in Hard Spring Wheat (HSW) quality laboratories at NDSU. She has authored and co-authored hundreds of research papers, and conference contributions in the area of wheat quality, mycotoxin analysis and carbohydrate chemistry. Her program works with wheat breeding programs to insure that high quality varieties with good disease package would be released. She is an active member of the America Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI), a member of the AACCI Carbohydrate Division, and a member of the Wheat Quality Council (WQC), and also serves on Spring Wheat Technical board of Wheat Quality Council. In 2011, Dr. Simsek was awarded the Larson/Yaggie Excellence in Research Award 2011 by the NDSU College of Agriculture and the Early-in Career Award of Excellence during the U.S. Quality Grains Research Consortium annual meeting. She is the recipient of the 2013 AACC-I Young Scientist Research Award. The first North Dakota State University Bert L. D’Appolonia Endowed Associate Professorship in Cereal Science and Technology of Wheat has been awarded to Dr. Simsek in August, 2013.

Dr. Simsek’s presentation “Mycotoxins and health“ will provide insight into the common mycotoxins found in wheat grain their toxicity for humans. Her presentation will focus on deoxynivalenol (DON) and deoxynivalenol-3-β-d-glucopyranoside (D3G).

Simon Fonteyne

Simon Fonteyne is a cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and coordinates a network of agronomic research trials in various projects across Mexico. Before working at CIMMYT he did a Ph. D. at Ghent University and the Flemish Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research in Belgium, investigating the cold tolerance of the biomass crop miscanthus.

In his talk “MASAGRO’s participative research network across Mexico: adapting conservation agriculture to local conditions” Simon will describe MASAGRO project, in which CIMMYT has set up collaborative research trials across Mexico in order adapt conservation agriculture to local conditions and make maize and wheat production more sustainable. This presentation will give an overview of this network and summarize some of the results and impacts of these trials.

Craig Morris

Craig F. Morris is the Director of the USDA ARS Western Wheat Quality Laboratory located on the Washington State University (WSU) campus in Pullman, Washington, USA. He received his BS from Iowa State University, and MS and PhD from Kansas State University. He is Adjunct Professor in the WSU Department of Crop & Soil Sciences and WSU/University of Idaho School of Food Science. He is a Fellow of AACC International, former member of the Board of Directors, and is Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Cereal Chemistry. He has been awarded 5 patents, and has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters. His primary research interests are in wheat grain hardness and the role of puroindolines, starch biosynthesis and composition, polyphenol oxidase, and wheat utilization. His development of soft kernel durum wheat is rewriting the book on durum wheat quality. Lastly, his lab performs ~5,000 milling and baking evaluations on experimental wheat breeding lines each year, and collaborates on the release of superior cultivars for the Western USA

His presentation entitled “Enhanced gluten properties in soft kernel durum wheat” will explain the enhancement of dough strength and its effect on bread baking by combining existing translocations involving the Glu-D1 High Molecular Weight (HMW) Glutenin subunits Dx2+Dy12 and Dx5+Dy10 with the soft kernel trait. Both HMW alleles resulted in increased dough strength. Dx2+Dy12 appeared to provide a better balance of elasticity and extensibility, whereas Dx5+Dy10 produced overly strong doughs.

Julie Miller Jones

Julie Miller Jones is a Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus of nutrition in the Department of Family, Consumer and Nutritional Sciences at the St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She is a scientific advisor for many organizations including the EU HealthGrain Platform on Whole Grains, Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre, the Joint Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition for the University of Maryland and the US Food and Drug Administration, the carbohydrate committee of the International Life Sciences Institute of North America, the Grains Food Foundation, and the California Fig Advisory Board. Also, Jones is actively involved in trying to educate the consumer against frauds and myths in nutrition and food safety; she has authored Food Safety (Eagan Press) and edited a book Dietary Fibre: Food and Feed and Bio-active Ingredients.

Her presentation entitled “Gluten: Facts, Factoids and Fallacies” is addressed to the allegations about gluten proteins impacts on health. In addition, it is discussed the economic and nutritional issues of gluten-free food and diets, and the long-term consequences of the adoption of such diets.

Mike Sissons

Mike Sissons holds a PhD in Cereal Chemistry from the University of Adelaide. Currently, he is Principle Research Scientist (Head of durum chemistry)/Adjunct Professor with the University of New England, in this role he coordinates and supervises the routine quality evaluation of breeder’s lines for Durum Breeding Australia (involved in release of 12 durum wheat varieties) and conducts basic and strategic research on durum wheat science. He posses Professional Membership of the Australasian Grain Science Association (formerly Royal Australian Chemical Institute, Cereal Chemistry Division) from 1995 to date; American Association of Cereal Chemists International from 1997 to date; Chair of the AACC International pasta technical committee from 2009 to date; and Membership of editorial board of Cereal Chemistry from 2013 to date. He has published 58 refereed scientific papers, 8 book chapters and over 76 conference presentations in several countries. His current research interests are: utilization of protein fractions from durum wheat bran to improve nutritional value of durum wheat pasta (PhD project); identification of genetic variation for heat tolerance in durum and bread wheat (collaboration with Univ. of Adelaide); new AACCI method for texture analysis cooked pasta firmness and cooking time; assessment of novel protein and starch durum lines (collaboration Univ. Tuscia); determination of impact of genotype, environment and their interaction on durum wheat technological properties; and development of durum wheat with extremes of %B starch granule content.

His presentation entitled “Can manipulation of the glutenin composition of durum wheat improve bread loaf volume and still maintain pasta quality?” is explaining the effect of chromosome manipulation of glutenin subunit composition on the gluten quality in durum wheat to be included in bread making.

Markus Brunnbauer

After his graduation in food chemistry at the Technical University of Munich Dr. Markus Brunnbauer was engaged in the working group of Prof. Peter Koehler at the German Research Center for Food Chemistry in Freising for 6 years. There, the main focus of his scientific work was on the influence of high hydrostatic pressure on food components, mainly proteins, and on investigating the chemical and technological properties of wheat gluten. Therefore he also worked on developing new analytical methods based on mass spectrometry and rheology for determining the properties of gluten proteins. Since 2013 he has been working in the R&D department of backaldrin International The Kornspitz Company. The company is located in Asten, Austria and is an international manufacturer of baking improvers and premixes. Backaldrin offers individual solutions for the baking industry. Beside of Austria the company has subsidiaries in Jordan, Mexico, Switzerland, South Africa, Ukraine and Russia.

In his presentation entitled “modern applications of vital gluten in bakery products and higher demands for its quality” is giving an update about modern applications for vital gluten in bakery products. The resulting higher demands for its quality are discussed and suggestions are made for defining suitable quality parameters for vital gluten.

Alison Lovegrove

Alison Lovegrove gained her PhD from King’s College London and has for the last 13 years worked within the Cell Wall Group in the Department of Plant Science Rothamsted Research where she is a Senior Research Scientist. Her main focus of research is in the area of wheat quality exploiting cereal grains for improved human health and processing, specifically the content and composition of dietary fibre. In the newly funded Designing Future Wheat (DFW) UK wheat research programme, she is a Co-I in the Enhanced Health Benefits work package. Alison also currently leads the BBSRC Newton Fund project Enhanced Rice Quality for Health (EnRicH).

Her presentation entitled “Exploiting natural and induced variation to improve the content and composition of dietary fibre in wheat grain” is addressing the development of new types of wheat with high arabinoxylan and β-glucan fibre in white flour, by exploiting natural as a strategy to improve the health of large populations at low cost.

Susan Altenbach

Dr. Susan Altenbach is a Research Biologist at the USDA-ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany, CA USA where she utilizes biotechnology and proteomics approaches to explore how environmental conditions influence protein composition, quality and immunogenic potential of wheat flour. She developed a comprehensive 2-D map of the wheat flour proteome in which nearly all of the abundant proteins were identified by tandem mass spectrometry and associated with specific gene sequences. She used this map to identify quantitative changes in flour protein composition that occur in response to the application of post-anthesis fertilizer or high temperatures during grain development. Since some of these changes may be responsible for variability of end-use quality, she utilized transgenic approaches to establish links between flour quality and proteins that change in response to the growth environment. In addition, Dr. Altenbach has characterized wheat genes and proteins responsible for food allergies, celiac disease and non-celiac wheat sensitivities. Her current work focuses on developing strategies to reduce the immunogenic potential of wheat flour. She developed transgenic wheat in which the major sensitizing allergens in a severe food allergy were eliminated without adverse effects on flour end-use quality and is currently exploring the use of genome editing to develop more healthful wheat that can be incorporated into conventional breeding programs.

In her presentation entitled “biotechnology and breeding strategies for the development of wheat with reduced allergenic potential” is introducing two strategies used to reduce the immunogenic potential of wheat flour. In one, -5 gliadins, major sensitizing allergens in a severe food allergy, were eliminated by RNA interference while in the other a mutant line missing proteins encoded at the Glu-B3 and Gli-B1 loci was selected from a doubled haploid population. Efficacies of the two approaches will be compared.

Jos Van Boxtel

Jos van Boxtel holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences/Plant Breeding from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His Ph.D. research work was conducted at CIRAD, Montpellier, France, studying the genetic transformation of coffee. From 1995 to 1999 he was a post-doc studying virus resistance in cowpea through genetic engineering at the John Innes Centre in the UK. From 1999 to 2002, he returned to CIRAD, this time studying salt and drought tolerance in rice through genetic engineering. And before joining Arcadia in 2003, he had worked at UC Davis on salt tolerant rice. In addition to production of transgenic plants for the various Arcadia projects, his Plant Transformation Group works on innovating plant gene modification techniques which can be used for enhancing environmental and health benefits of agricultural crops. Currently, Jos is leading projects to develop non-GM low gluten wheat and heat stress tolerant wheat at Arcadia.

His presentation entitled “Reduced gluten and increased lysine levels by single gene disruption in wheat” is about the identification of the genetic lesion underlying a recessive, low gluten mutation (lys3a) in diploid barley. The use of TILLING to identify induced SNPs in the three homoeologs of the corresponding wheat gene. Combining inactivating mutations in the genome of non-transgenic hexaploid bread wheat lines, lowered gliadin and LMW glutenin accumulation by 75% and increased free and protein-bound lysine by 33%.

Senay Simsek

Senay Simsek is a professor at North Dakota State University (NDSU). She moved to the USA in 2002 and started her PhD in Food Science at Purdue University. She completed her PhD in December 2006 and started working as an assistant professor in Plant Sciences Department at NDSU in January 2007. She has leadership position in Hard Spring Wheat (HSW) quality laboratories at NDSU. She has authored and co-authored hundreds of research papers, and conference contributions in the area of wheat quality, mycotoxin analysis and carbohydrate chemistry. Her program works with wheat breeding programs to insure that high quality varieties with good disease package would be released. She is an active member of the America Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI), a member of the AACCI Carbohydrate Division, and a member of the Wheat Quality Council (WQC), and also serves on Spring Wheat Technical board of Wheat Quality Council. In 2011, Dr. Simsek was awarded the Larson/Yaggie Excellence in Research Award 2011 by the NDSU College of Agriculture and the Early-in Career Award of Excellence during the U.S. Quality Grains Research Consortium annual meeting. She is the recipient of the 2013 AACC-I Young Scientist Research Award. The first North Dakota State University Bert L. D’Appolonia Endowed Associate Professorship in Cereal Science and Technology of Wheat has been awarded to Dr. Simsek in August, 2013.

Dr. Simsek’s presentation “Immunomodulatory Activities of Wheat Arabinoxylan Hydrolyzates” will provide insight into arabinoxylans (AX), major non-starch polysaccharides found in wheat. Dr. Simsek will explain the biological functionality of AX in cell culture model systems.

Maryke Labuschagne

Maryke Labuschagne is a professor in Plant Breeding at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, in South Africa. She heads a South African Research Initiatives Chair in quality and disease resistance in field crops. Her research interests are focused on gluten proteins and their relationship with baking quality in wheat, and on the genetic improvement of nutritional value in field crops, specifically beta carotene in maize, cassava, sweet potato and plantain, and iron and zinc and phenolic compounds in some field crops. Her passion is training of especially PhD students in Africa, and working in the drive towards improved food security in Africa.

Her presentation: ”Proteomics in wheat gluten research: where are we standing and where are we going?“ is providing an overview on the past and current status of proteomics as a tool in gluten research, and also the direction proteomics research is taking in terms of gluten proteins.

Sewa Ram

Sewa Ram was borne on 1st August 1962 in India. He did graduation and Post-Graduation from Meerut University, Meerut and Ph.D. from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India. He joined Indian Council of Agricultural Research on 02-02-1990 as a Scientist, Plant Biochemistry. Joined Indian Wheat and Barley Research Institute, Karnal in February, 1997 and since then he has been working on wheat quality. Currently, he is Principal Scientist and heading the wheat quality research in the institute.

In his presentation entitled “assessment of genetic variability and development of high phytase and low phytic acid genotypes in wheat” is introducing the identified large variations in phytase and phytic acid levels in wheat germplasm and further enhancement through mutation breeding. High phytase mutant lines were developed that are very useful resource for breeding high yielding wheat varieties with high phytase levels and consequently higher bioavailability of Fe and Zn to human beings. This could lead to both improved human health and more sustainable agriculture.

Bin Xiao Fu

Bin Xiao Fu is a research scientist and program manager at the Grain Research Laboratory (GRL) ofCanadian Grain Commission (CGC). He manages all activities related to research and technical projects in the Bread and Durum Wheat Research unit at GRL. The overall goal of his program is to provide scientific support for the Canadian wheat and durum quality assurance system. His activities fall under two categories: research on quality and quality assurance. Dr. Fu’s research focuses on 1) development of new methods or the modification of existing ones to measure wheat quality more effectively and efficiently; 2) investigation of the effects of grading factors on wheat quality to support the Canadian grain grading system; and 3) identification and characterization of biochemical components that are responsible for wheat quality. Before joining CGC in 2009, he was the head of Asian Products Technology at the Canadian International Grains Institute for over 10 years. Dr. Fu received his PhD in Cereal Chemistry from The University of Manitoba in 1996 followed with one year postdoc research at Cereal Research Centre (Winnipeg), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

His presentation “Rapid assay for functional protein fractions in wheat flour or wholemeal” is introducing a high throughput micro-scale (in milligrams) protocol for the rapid quantification of functional protein fractions to calculate the ratios of polymeric to monomeric proteins, and insoluble to soluble glutenins in wheat flour or wholemeal. The proposed protocol can be used as a tool for screening in breeding programs or to investigate the effects of genotype, environment, and their interactions on dough functionality.

Bin Xiao Fu

Till Pellny is a Senior Research Scientist in the Plant department at Rothamsted Research in the UK. He is an Agricultural Engineer with a degree from the University of Hanover, Germany and a PhD in Plant Sciences from the University of Nottingham. As a Plant and Cell Biologist he is currently working to improve the dietary fibre composition of wheat for human consumption, animal feed stocks and industrial processes. The work includes gene discovery and evaluation by transgenesis and mutagenesis as well as the utilisation of natural variation. He is interested in breadmaking quality especially with reduced nitrogen inputs. Till is working within the newly funded Designing Future Wheat (DFW) UK wheat research programme and is a Co-I in the Newton-Bhabha funded Virtual Indo-UK Centre for Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Wheat (INEW). At Rothamsted since 2006 he has previously worked on assimilation partitioning and has a background in stress biology and redox regulation of the cell cycle.

His presentation entitled “Developing new types of wheat with good processing quality at low grain protein content” is addressing the questions: Can we make wheat that bakes well without the requirement of high levels of protein? We are collating a large data set for forty European Wheat varieties grown at multiple sites over three years to dissect different properties that determine bread making quality. Can we define underlying factors and also developing proxy tests to predict baking performance at low protein?

Marianna Rakszegi

Marianna Rakszegi is a principal investigator of cereal chemistry at the Cereal Breeding Department of the Centre for Agricultural Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS). As the leader of the quality lab, her main field is the identification and development of biochemical and molecular-biology tools to develop a more efficient selection system for quality-oriented wheat breeding. Her research mainly focuses on storage proteins, starch, dietary fibers and other bioacive components of cereals. She actively participated in several national and international projects, including the EU-FP6-Healthgrain project and the EU-FP7-SOLIBAM project, and she was a WP leader in the latest. She is the author of over 69 refereed papers cited over 1700 times and co-author of 17 book chapters. She is a co-breeder of 38 wheat and 2 spelt varieties. Recently she supervise 2 Phd students. She won the János Bólyai Fellowship of the HAS twice, and also won the Zoltán Magyary postdoctoral Fellowship. She awarded the ’Researcher of the year 2017’ title in Veszprém Area, Hungary by the HAS. She is the member of the Eucarpia and the Committee on Plant Breeding, in the Section of Agricultural Sciences of the HAS.

Marianna presentation is “Aegilops as a source of dietary fiber and drought stress tolerance”. Aegilops species are good genetic resources for altering the protein composition and improving the dietary fiber content and drought stress tolerance of wheat. The addition of individual Aegilops chromosomes to wheat and their detailed biochemical analysis will help to identify the location of the determinant genes in Aegilops and to transfer wild alleles into wheat more efficiently.

Gilberto Igrejas

GILBERTO IGREJAS is Professor at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD). Completed a PhD in Genetics and Biotechnology at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in collaboration with Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in 2001. Post-Graduation in Legal Medicine, Institute National of Legal Medicine – Porto/ Faculty of Medicine of Porto University, 2002. Post-doctoral training in Molecular Genetics, as Visitant Scientist, at Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia.
Currently is head of the Functional Genomics and Proteomics Unit and integrated member of the (Bio)Chem & OMICS, LAQV-REQUIMTE of Nova University of Lisbon. It develops research work focused on the use of omics tools, particularly genomics and proteomics, at the molecular genetics and biotechnology level of various plant, animal and microbial species. These are in the chronological involvement as priority research areas, based on these tools and their scope i) characterization of genetic resources of wheat, rye and triticale; ii) Proteomics applied to the detection of genes responsible for the functionality and allergenicity of wheat grain, rye and triticale; iii) Genomics and proteomics applied to antibiotic resistance; iv) Nutrigenomics and proteomics applied to the evaluation of protein species and finally, v) Probiotics in biotechnology and health. With regard to scientific production has published more than 150 articles, 12 book chapters, 20 oral presentations by invitation, 40 oral presentations, 250 communications in scientific meetings, 11 publications in GenBank, 8 publications in UniProt, 6 records the MLST, 13 articles in technical and scientific journals and 10 educational series. Responsible for research projects, teaches International courses, Doctoral and Master’s degree and keeps working activities with several national and international entities. The current supervision activities includes 3 Post-Doctoral researchers, 4 Ph.D. students, 7 Master students and 4 undergraduate students. His past successful supervising includes more than 100 students and the participation at 120 jury of academic degrees.

His presentation entitled “Proteomics to assess the quality of the Portuguese bread wheat”. will explain how the identification of new alleles provides the opportunity of testing their effect on dough quality, in particular on extensibility. Although there was some variation, flours from the Portuguese wheat lines analysed were remarkably well suited for biscuit-making. Different crosses can be devised to introduce the most favourable combinations of old varieties in modern germplasm.

Martin Kropff

Martin Kropff joined CIMMYT as Director General in 2015, after working at Wageningen University and Research Center (Wageningen UR) in the Netherlands, where he was Rector Magnificus and Vice Chairman of the Executive Board for almost 10 years. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental sciences at Wageningen. From 1990 to 1995, Kropff was the systems agronomist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines where he led an international program with National Agricultural Research Systems and Universities in nine Asian countries on systems research and simulation for rice production. Since 1995, he has served successive roles at Wageningen UR, including as Professor and Director General of the Plant Sciences Group and on the Executive Board. He is still connected to Wageningen UR as a Professor. From 2013 to 2015, he was a member of the Board of Directors of CGIAR, the 15-member consortium of international agricultural researchers to which CIMMYT and IRRI belong. He chaired the new System Management Board of the reformed CGIAR from 2015 to 2017 and he is still a member

Wolfgang H. Pfeiffer

Dr. Wolfgang H. Pfeiffer, Director R&D HarvestPlus, provides overall leadership for HarvestPlus ‘Operations’ to achieve the technological and commercial project goals: generating micronutrient-dense, high-yielding, profitable varieties of key staple foods in crop development. Delivery management responsibilities embrace the design and implementation of effective delivery strategies in target countries with HarvestPlus country teams by forming operational and strategic partnerships along value chains in areas such as seed supply, farm extension, marketing and advocacy. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Agricultural Sciences from Stuttgart-Hohenheim University in Germany. Prior to joining HarvestPlus in 2005 he worked for more than 20 years at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico and was responsible for applied and strategic bread wheat, durum wheat, and triticale improvement under CIMMYT’s global germplasm development mandate.

His talk “Harvestplus Alliance: Research, Development and Delivery of Micronutrient Dense Crops” will discuss biofortification under the HarvestPlus alliance in the context of generating micronutrient-dense, profitable varieties of key staple foods, and the challenges and strategies in delivering these crops in target countries by engaging actors along the entire value chain to generate sustainable markets for seed and biofortified products under social and commercial marketing situations.

B.M. Prasanna

Dr B.M. Prasanna is the Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) MAIZE. Based in Nairobi (Kenya), Prasanna leads the multi-disciplinary CIMMYT Global Maize Program team, with strong focus on maize improvement in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. He provides technical oversight for an array of multi-institutional projects on development and deployment of improved stress resilient maize germplasm in the tropics, besides deploying novel tools and technologies for enhancing genetic gains and breeding efficiency. Prasanna is also leading the CRP MAIZE, an alliance of >300 research and development institutions worldwide that seeks to mobilize global resources in maize research and development to achieve a greater strategic impact on maize-based farming systems in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Under Prasanna’s leadership, CIMMYT established the state-of-the-art maize doubled haploid facility at Kiboko in Kenya. Prasanna and team have been at the forefront in tackling the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease epidemic in eastern Africa. He is also presently coordinating CIMMYT-led intensive multi-institutional efforts for fighting the challenge of Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) outbreak across Africa. Prasanna published more than 130 research articles in journals of repute, besides 48 book chapters and 10 edited volumes. He was recognized with awards and honors for his contributions to maize research and post-graduate teaching excellence.

Dr. Prasanna’s presentation on “Maize-based Food and Nutritional Security in the Developing World” will highlight the intensive multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary efforts made on breeding for biofortified maize (particularly QPM, provitamin A, and high-Zn), and the opportunities for scaling-up adoption and impacts of nutritionally enriched maize cultivars in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Zhonghu He

Zhonghu He is a distinguished scientist with the Global Wheat Program and Country Liaison Officer in China for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Additionally, he is a research professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) the director of China’s National Wheat Improvement Center. He established and led the internationally recognized CIMMYT-CAAS wheat program. His major contributions to wheat improvement include the development and validation of more than 50 gene-specific markers through the application of comparative genomics and the release of 26 improved cultivars. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 papers in refereed journals, including 130 publications in international journals, and trained more than 80 postgraduates and visiting scientists. He received a CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Regional Award in 2007, the First Class Award in Science and Technology from the Chinese State Council in 2008, was selected as fellow of the Crop Science Society of America in 2009 and Agronomy Society of America in 2013, and was awarded the China Agriculture Elite Award in 2012.

His presentation: ”molecular marker development and application for improving qualities in bread wheat“ is addressing the progress of genotyping technologies and their integration on traditional breeding.

Gideon Kruseman

Gideon Kruseman leads the foresight, ex-ante impact assessment and targeting research at the International maize and Wheat Improvement center (CIMMYT). He also coordinates the community of practice on socio-economic data that is part of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture. Gideon holds a PhD in development economics from Wageningen University. He has worked as development and environmental economist in international agricultural research (CIAT, IFPRI, CIMMYT), academia (Wageningen University and Free University Amsterdam), for development NGOs and in the Dutch national agricultural research system on a wide variety of topics. His current research focusses on the consequences of climate change, dietary change, rural transformation and, new and emerging biotic stress on research priority setting for maize and wheat agri-food systems. Moreover, he engages in ex-ante impact assessment of pipeline technologies and agricultural research investments. Although the target geographies of his research are all low and middle-income countries where maize and wheat-based agri-food systems dominate, the main geographic focus of his work is on eastern and southern Africa, South Asia and Mexico.

Having worked in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams building bridges between different sciences, he enjoys diving into complex issues and developing models and creative methodologies for optimization and data analysis especially using GAMS, AWK and R.

Gideon applies his skills to better target research in order to meet the sustainable development goals of ending hunger and poverty through social inclusive technology development.

His presentation entitled “Milling quality: the Achilles heel of cereal foresight studies?” will be focused on: expected consequences of climate change causing damage to wheat quality are erratic rainfall patterns, heat stress and elevated CO2 levels. Foreseen shifts in consumption patterns will affect the consequences of changes in wheat quality in different ways. Using a suite of models and tools we answer the question if fluctuating milling quality matters in the long run for food security.

Marcus Loens

Starting 1982, Markus Löns has worked several years as baker in some German bakeries before he extended his knowledge at a High School for Food and Domestic Economy. Following this experience he graduated as Engineer for Food Technology, specializing in flour and grain, and has worked some years at the Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, as the head of the research and training laboratory baking & sweets. Markus joined Brabender® in 2002 as sales director for the food department. The first years he worked worldwide at Brabender® as sales specialist for lab equipment, especially rheology, moisture, milling, and viscosity. In 2012 he was appointed head of the food department as Senior Sales Director Food. From October 2016 Markus changed again his position inside of Brabender and is now as Director Food Division responsible for the complete Food Division.

His talk New solutions to automate and optimize quality control and lab analytic shows some milestones how to satisfy your customers with quality and how to increase the success of your company. Developed along the value chain from grain reception to the baked product for the consumer, Brabender as your partner presents the solution that you need.

Jayne Bock

Jayne Bock is the Global Technical Leader of the Food Division for C.W. Brabender Instruments, Inc., and an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph. Her expertise is in grain and flour quality, gluten structure-function, and the influence of bran on product structure and quality in whole grain products. She works extensively with wheat breeders, agronomists, growers, millers, and food processors at the interface of academia and industry to find solutions for emerging quality issues in the milling and baking industries. Jayne earned her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Kansas State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Her presentation entitled Development of a method to evaluate the quality of vital wheat gluten for bread baking using a high shear technique is about a method developed to evaluate the quality of vital wheat gluten samples using the GlutoPeak instrument and the results correlated to baking results, since few methods exist that successfully discriminate among vital wheat gluten samples in a manner that is correlated to baking performance.

Barbara Laddomada

Barbara Laddomada, PhD, is researcherat the Institute of Sciences of Food Production of Italian Research Council since 1999. Her research focus is the genetic analysis of quantitative traits related to grain quality of durum wheat and the quality assessment of durum wheat-based foods. She is a member of the Wheat Initiative, Expert Working Groups: Improving wheat quality for processing and health; and Durum Wheat Genomics and Breeding. Barbara graduated in Agricultural Sciences in 1993 at the University of Bari, Italy. In 1997, she received her PhD in Plant Genetics from the University of La Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy, defending a dissertation on the identification of molecular markers linked to protein content in durum wheat by bulked segregant analysis and association mapping. In 1995, she was visiting scientist at the Department of Plant Pathology, KSU (KS, USA) working on the genetic dissection of protein content in durum wheat and the exploitation of segregation distortion in Triticum tauschii. In 1997, she earned a one year fellowship from FAO at the Department of Biology and Plant Pathology, University of Basilicata, Italy, to identify molecular markers associated with yield components in durum wheat. Next, she was post-doctoral fellow at the Plant Breeding Institute, University of Bari, Italy, working on the genetic analysis of quantitative traits in durum wheat. In 2010, she joined the HPI project ͚Enhancing plant health and functional food value of wheat͛ at the Plant Pathology Department, KSU, USA, for the genetic analysis of secondary metabolites with antioxidant activity in wheat.

Her presentation ”Variability in phenolic acid composition and content in a collection of CIMMYT durum wheat cultivars and Mexican landraces” will be focused on: genetic variability for individual and total phenolic acids in a collection of Mexican durum wheat landraces and varieties developed by CIMMYT; assessment of environmental effects (e.g. full and reduced irrigation, mild and severe water-deficit and heat stress) on the phenolic acid contents; and future perspectives for breeders to develop varieties with relevant levels of phenolic acids.

Jan Willem van der Kamp

Jan Willem van der Kamp graduated in physical and colloid chemistry at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. After positions in food research and product development in Unilever he joined in 1985 TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research as director of cereal research. In his position as Senior Officer International Projects, currently both at TNO and Wageningen Food & Biobased Research he was and is involved in a wide range of national and EU projects, including HEALTHGRAIN (2005-2010) for leading communication and technology transfer activities, HealthBread.u(2012-2014), as coordinator, and MyNewGut (2013-2018). He served as International Director of AACCI, President of ICC, and is now chairing the ICC Academy. As board member of the Healthgrain Forum/ (HGF) he co-authored the publication of the HGF definitions of Whole grain 2 and Whole-grain foods/and is now chairing the International Working Group for coming to a global definition for whole grain (raw material) using the Healthgrain Forum definition as a starting point.

His talk is enttiled “Definitions for whole grain and whole grain foods–perspectives for global harmonization”. After outlining key points of the Healthgrain definition for whole-grain raw materials, – e.g. removal of 2% of the grain for quality & safety and allowed ways for recombining of endosperm, germ, bran – choices to be made for a global definition and options for its relationship with local definitions will be highlighted. Attendants are invited to share their views.