In the frame of the teaching activities of the Food Systems PhD Programme, the advanced courses will be planned as follows:
Sustainability concepts in food technology – methodological approaches and case studies (Prof. Vera Lavelli). The food industry is of primary importance to several national economies around the world, thus being urged to address the impelling need for a sustainable production system. The course aims to illustrate sustainability issues in food technology with a holistic approach, starting from an overview of useful sources of information and reliable tools for assessing environmental impacts and then focusing on three complementary strategies towards sustainability: emerging food technologies, new packaging systems and tools to assess consumer attitude towards sustainable innovation.
Environmental microbiomes: from microbial ecology to ecosystem services (Prof. Sara Borin). Topic of the course are the microbial communities –the microbiomes- thriving in natural and anthropized environments. The course will firstly introduce the principles of their selection, assembly and dynamics, and the metagenomic –based approaches for their investigation. The following lessons will focus each on the microbiome of a specific environment and its exploitation. The environmental microbiomes will be indeed presented in this course in the frame of the development of environmental biotechnologies, seen as the engineering of microbial communities to obtain an ecosystem service: bioremediation, control of insect pests and pathogens transmitted by insects, plant growth promotion, cultural heritage biotechnology, sessile growth promotion and inhibition.
Microbial Food Biotechnologies (Dr Stefania Arioli). The course of Microbial Food Biotechnology was designed for the PhD course in Food Systems with the aim to transfer to students cultural and technical knowledge necessary to manage the microbial resources and microbial-based innovations in food fermentation processes. The students will acquire knowledge on the biological mechanisms of food-associated bacteria with the aim to apply them to microbiological processes of industrial relevance. The students will acquire a critical approach useful for the selection of microbial strains for food fermentations, for bio-preservation processes, or for the production of bioactive molecules.
The intestinal microbiota: interactions with host and diet (Dr. Valentina Taverniti). The aim of the course is to provide knowledge about the microbiota and its impact on host health, together with the analytical, bioinformatic and statistical methods to study its composition. The course has been designed to provide knowledge and expertise useful to approach the study of microbiota, particularly in its interaction with host physiology. The topics and case studies proposed will provide information regarding (i) the recent techniques and methods used to study the microbiotas in different body niches and how to select and apply the proper elaborations and statistics (ii) the role of different dietary patterns and individual dietary factors in modulating the composition of the intestinal microbiota (iii) the bi-directional relationship between microbiota and immune-neuroendocrine system.
The methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the food chain (Prof. Riccardo Guidetti). The course introduces PhD students in some calculation approaches related to the environmental sustainability of the agri-food sector. The course will be divided in 3 parts. The first part is an introduction to sustainability and the engineering parameters for energy and water assessment used in agro-food industries. The second one is the evaluation of the method of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The third part is based on the analysis of some software for LCA evaluation and some application cases taken from the experience of researchers involved in the course.
Videocommunication of science: filming methods to learn the method (Prof. Matias Pasquali). The course illustrates the potentialities of scientific method communication using video as preferential format. The course will guide the student towards the production of his own video describing a scientific methodology/protocol.
For further details, visit the Courses page of the Food Systems web site.
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