Bertram Awarded by Danisco for Meat Product Research

Hanne Christine Bertram's work has provided a new understanding of how the water distribution in meat affects its technological quality and how the protein structure in meat influences the water distribution.

25 Nov 2009 --- The Danisco Award 2009 of DKK 250,000 goes to Hanne Christine Bertram, Senior Scientist at the Department of Food Science, Aarhus University. She receives the award for her research in meat and meat products. The research has given an important understanding of water binding in food and particularly in meat and meat products. Her work has provided a new understanding of how the water distribution in meat affects its technological quality and how the protein structure in meat influences the water distribution.

Hanne Christine Bertram is 33 years old and has published 60 peer-reviewed articles and contributed to several books. She is respected for communicating advanced research results in an easily understandable way and is a popular lecturer and teacher. She is also the supervisor of five PhD students and one post doc student. Since 2007, she has been working on a new platform for metabolomics based on high-field NMR and mass spectrometry. The metabolic fingerprint is determined by way of metabolomics, providing not only a complete description of the food but also an understanding of the human body’s response to these food products. In 2006, she received the Young Elite Researchers Award 2006 of the Danish Council for Independent Research.
 
The award winner’s research field is important to the meat products that consumers around the world will be eating in the future because of the relationship between the water distribution in meat and the eating quality. This field is also of great interest to Danisco, because the company is engaged in ingredients for the meat industry in the areas of shelf life, safety, nutritional profile, texture and colour.
 
The award, which is mainly granted to promising, young researchers with a view to strengthening their career opportunities, was presented on 24 November 2009 at the FOOD Denmark congress held at the Technical University of Denmark.
 
The purpose of the Award instituted by the Danisco Foundation is to help improve food products, notably industrially produced foods. Institutions and individuals in Denmark and abroad are eligible for the Award as a reward for outstanding efforts to improve foods or as a means of financing food improvement projects. The Danisco Award is presented at least every other year.

In 2008, the Danisco Award 2008 went to lecturer, DSc Barbara Ann Halkier from the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. She received the Award for her research into secondary metabolites, which are biologically active substances in, for instance, plants. Her research has been focused on metabolites in rape and cabbage, which are known for their cancer-preventive properties.

In 2007, the Award went to Professor Niels Christian Nielsen of Aarhus University. He received the Award for his outstanding international research profile, not least within food-related issues, and his strong commitment to the establishment of the NanoFood consortium.