BMC Biotechnology presents the collection Food biotechnology, that highlights manuscripts on novel research and technological advances that connect biotechnology with the food industry and food products.
As we face the challenges of continuous world population growth and climate change, more research, innovation and applications are demanded to ensure food security and sustainability, as well as food safety and quality. A range of solutions to tackling this relevant issue may lie with food biotechnological advances and methods that have appeared at an unprecedented rate in the last few decades. With emerging developments of molecular genetic tools, biochemical, enzymatic and metabolic processes applied to food products and systems, and the applications of microbial and biochemical processes e.g. for food improvement and food waste remediation, this growing research field promises relevant advances for the production, improvement and processing of food.
BMC Biotechnology acknowledges the urgent necessity to achieve sustainable food security and provide adequate nutrition, reduce food losses and waste, promote sustainable agricultural practices and tackle climate change, by launching the ‘Food biotechnology’ collection. In line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals ‘Zero hunger’ (SGD 2), which aims to ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’, this collection will bring together original research that covers biotechnological innovations and applications for the development and optimization of food systems and food-related approaches for the future.
Our collection showcases research articles and methods that researchers wish to establish in the growing field of food biotechnology. Collection contributions comprise a broad range of research areas including:
- Food security and food systems for the future
- Biotechnological applications to increase shelf life, quality and safety of food
- Bio-preservation and processing of food products
- Novel approaches in food preservation
- Food fortification
- Alternative food sources for a sustainable food development (e.g. alternative animal food and insects)
- Food microbiology
- Microbes as sustainable food source (e.g. microbial protein production)
- Production and applications of microbial metabolites for food production and improvement
- Potential and development of prebiotics and probiotics
- Biotechnology applied to sustainable agricultural practices for plant yield optimization and sustainable food production systems
- Food biochemistry
- Functional foods and nutraceuticals, and food nutritional and nutraceutical value
- Food waste remediation
- Novel extraction technologies of bioactive compounds from agri-food waste and by-product sources
- Industrial applications for functional food
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