Biotransformation and Analysis of Functional Foods and Ingredients

Dear Colleagues,

Functional foods such as food supplements, nutraceuticals, and their ingredients are currently becoming a core business for both small companies and huge pharma industries. Although their growth in the future market is assured, they sometimes lack quality and characterization, and questions have been raised regarding their efficacy, which is often attributed to their traditional uses. A number of those products (i.e., fermented products, nutraceuticals standardized for the concentration of phytocompounds and prebiotics) may undergo a series of natural biotransformations that are responsible for the production of a specific molecule of interest (biomarker of quality). In this case, to better understand and optimize the natural production of a specific compound, its monitoring by analytical chemistry during biotransformation is the best strategy to obtain the best final product.

This Special Issue is focused both on the technical analyses performed on an ingredient, a functional food or a food supplement (i.e., a nutraceutical product) prior to its market launch and on the analytical chemistry approaches that can be used to monitor, quantitate and improve the extraction yield of a desired compound.

Chemical and biological characterization of those products as well as the discovery of new formulation techniques, chemical food control protocols and bioactivity investigations are, indeed, the focal points of this Special Issue. Both experimental studies, comprehensive reviews, and survey papers are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Claudio Medana
Guest Editor

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