Advances in Food and Beverage Testing 2024

Kate studied physics at Oxford University, and upon graduating worked as a Patent Examiner at the European Patent Office before moving into academia. Her PhD and early career at the UK's Institute of Food Research focused on quantitative applications of infrared sensors. This led to an interest in the emerging fields of chemometrics, computational statistics and machine learning, to handle the large ‘chemical profile’ datasets generated by modern analytical instruments (NMR, FTIR, Raman, GC-, LC-MS). Kate has published widely in the academic literature, in areas of application including adulteration of food, drinks and ingredients, human metabolomics studies and the identification of novel psychoactives. She recently joined the University of East Anglia as Professor of AI in Chemistry, and also holds the role of Scientific Director at Mestrelab SL.

John is a UK-based consultant, advising food manufacturers and brand-owners on the role of analytical testing within supply chain assurance and on the interpretation of laboratory results. He has a previous career of technical leadership roles both within testing laboratories and major food companies. John acts as network secretary for the Food Authenticity Network, the world’s premier free source of food authenticity test methods and fraud mitigation information.

Catherine Frankis is a technical specialist in spectroscopy and chromatography techniques at Reading Scientific Services Ltd, specialising in delivering analytical solutions in the fields of adulteration, contamination and authenticity within the food industry. Catherine joined RSSL in 2011 following completion of her PhD at the University of Bath.

Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten is Scientific Director at CRA-W (Walloon Agricultural Research Centre) and head of the Quality and Authentication of Products Unit (QAP Unit). This Unit is part of the Knowledge and Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department of CRA-W and has a 30-person staff of researchers and technicians. The QAP Unit is involved in the development and implementation of sustainable practices to reinforce and assess the quality and authentication of agricultural and food products. The QAP Unit hosts also the European Union Reference Laboratory for Animal Protein (EURL-AP), is part of the NRL-OGM (JRC-Ispra) and NRL-Additive (JRC-Geel). The Unit runs part of its activities under ISO 17025 and ISO 17043 schemes. Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten has about 25 years of experience in European projects dealing with the development of spectroscopic methods. He has participated or participates in several European projects dealing with quality, safety, traceability and authentication of food and feed products (STRATFEED, TYPIC, MEDEO, CO-EXTRA, TRACE, SAFEED-PAP, FEEDforHEALTH, CONFIDENCE, QSAFE, FOODINTEGRITY, AUTHENT-NET, SENSORFINT). Since 2013, he has also been an invited assistant professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium). Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten was awarded the 2011-Q-Interline Sampling Award for the outstanding contribution in sampling applied to spectroscopy methods. In 2012, he was awarded by the Brazilian Program Ciência sem fronteiras as Pezquisador visitante especial at University Federal of Para (UFPA, Belem, Brazil). In 2021, he was awarded of the Tomas Hirschfeld Award for his outstanding achievements in Near Infrared spectroscopy.

Dr. Nikolay Kovachev completed his PhD studies at the University of Alicante, Spain, where he investigated new sample preparation and introduction techniques for elemental analysis by ICP-based spectrometry techniques. Currently, he works at Agilent as a product specialist in atomic spectroscopy with a special focus on the food market.

Control Point founder Trevor J. Morones is a classically culinary-trained expert butcher. As a craft butcher, he understands first-hand the desire to focus on the craft and create the best product possible, making throngs of satisfied customers and fulfilling brand promises of quality, efficiency, and unique value. As a Lead HACCP Instructor, GFSI auditor, and ANSI Instructor/Proctor, Trevor brings his brilliant engineering mind and spirit to craft training and solutions to minimize the amount of time spent with red tape and regulations, eliminating costly mistakes and fines while creating cultures of operational excellence. In working with high-volume manufacturing facilities and highly acclaimed restaurants such as Pat La Frieda Wholesale Meats, Las Vegas Raiders, Honest Hospitality Team, and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Trevor has perfected the balance between productivity and compliance. Control Point was created to guide Chefs, Restaurant Groups, and Food Manufacturers through their food safety concerns and processes with a high level of excellence. Control Point is all about results. Trevor's training and implementation practices have proven to increase company growth, domestically and internationally, by 66%. Trevor holds positions on many ASTM International committees that are critical to supporting product safety and excellence.

Andy Moreno, PhD is an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, Synthetic Biology Structures, qRT-PCR, Nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA), Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based in vitro diagnostic tests (CLIA Dx), bioinformatic software analysis technologies and systems for human diagnostics, oncology, applied microbiology, biotechnology engineering, companion diagnostics (CDC), Project management, Product management, and food testing applications. Microbiological Test Design, Implementation and Validation for Food Production, Quality, Safety, Security, and qRT-PCR Equipment & Assay applications. He has demonstrated success in creating valuable business opportunities. Strong record of interdisciplinary collaboration and contribution. Human testing for COVID-19 screening and testing in a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) regulate laboratory testing facility. His substantial experience with DNA RNA proteins at the interface of chemistry, biology and technology has enabled him to build robust, enabling tools for research, drug discovery and life-science applications. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD from Northcentral University in molecular, DNA testing. His experience includes positions in industry, government, and professional associations since 1983.

Hans-Joachim Hübschmann graduated as a Certified Food Chemist from the Technical University in Berlin, Germany, working on residue analysis of anabolic agents and pesticides in foods. Hans started his career in diagnostics, medical analytical instrumentation and in food safety and environmental application development, working for a number of German companies in liquid and gas chromatography, mass spectrometry and biotechnology. In 2002 he joined Thermo Fisher Scientific in Bremen, Germany, and held several international positions in the US and Asia covering product development and marketing in inorganic and isotope ratio mass spectrometry, high resolution GC-MS and GC-MS/MS, specializing in food safety, forensic, environmental and dioxin analysis. In 2015 Hans established the independent agency HANS Analytical Solutions active as a consultant for companies in Europe and Asia for the development of automated analytical sample preparation workflows. In his current international capacity, Hans is located in Europe and Osaka, Japan. Hans is the author of the popular Wiley “Handbook of GC-MS”, available already in its 3rd edition in 2015.

Daniel began his career in LIMS in 1990 as a Business Analyst for Laboratory MicroSystems. He joined Axiom Systems (now called LabVantage) in 1995 where he has remained, watching the company grow from 30 to over 475 employees. Career progression at LabVantage includes positions as Global Director of Technical Sales Support, Director of North American Business Analysts, and Senior Account Manager, Global Sales.

Jack has nine years of product management experience in the life science industry, mainly in analytical instrumentation. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and an MBA in marketing management. He has been with Eppendorf for five years as product manager for centrifugation and tubes.

Joel Ferrer is the Product Manager for the Agilent Triple Quadrupole GC/MS portfolio. He obtained his B.S. in Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University where he gained experience on Agilent LC/MS and GC/MS instrumentation performing metabolomics research in the Department of Chemistry. Joel later earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston with a focus in Product Management and Marketing Analytics. He’s been with Agilent in various roles for over 7 years and in his current product management role since June 2020.

Anastasia Andrianova is a GC/MS Applications Scientist in the Mass Spectrometry Division of Agilent Technologies, located in Wilmington, Delaware. She received a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) and a masters’ degree in analytical chemistry from the Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia). Anastasia has been at Agilent Technologies since 2018. She has authored or co-authored over 30 journal articles and application notes, and 1 patent in the field of analytical chemistry, focusing on chromatography and mass spectrometry. Anastasia is currently working in GC/MS applications in multiple areas with a focus on food and environmental analysis.

Dr. Marta Prado has a PhD in Food Science and Technology from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), she has worked at the Joint Research Center from the European Commission (JRC-EC) in Geel (Belgium) as Scientific Officer between 2005 and 2010. In 2010, she moved to INL to set up the Biocentral facilities and several other infrastructures. Between October 2016 and September 2023 Marta was the group leader of the Food Quality and Safety Research Group (FQ&S) at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) https://inl.int/food-quality-andsafety/ where she has led a team of 10 researchers including master and PhD students, technicians, postdocs, and staff researchers. Marta Prado is, since October 2023, Distinguished Researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela, after being awarded a Beatriz Galindo Senior grant. Marta actively collaborates with international institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), or REA among others as an external expert. She has launched the spinoff Neoxenica in 2020. Dr. Prado has led as PI several national and international projects including an EITFood research project (2020), an FCT (Portugal) project (2018-2022) and a large collaboration agreement with Confederacion Hidrografica del Guadalquivir (Spain) (2016-2019). During the last 5 years she has supervised 5 PhD students (1 ongoing) and 9 masters students. According to Scopus, Marta has an h factor of 22 with 88 articles, 11 book chapters, 1 Scientific Opinion European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), 1 Scientific Report (European Commission. Directorate-General Joint Research Centre).