Food Quality & Chemistry of Natural Products - Degrees

Post graduate specialisation programme

Download the Food Quality & Chemistry of Natural Products postgraduate programme as PDF file [152KB]

The programme is organised in 5 sections

Section I – Introductory Discipline

The cycle includes introductory courses on Scientific English, use of Computer and Statistics.

Section II – Fundamental Overviews

The cycle intends to strengthen the background of the students in order to form a solid base, upon which the rest of the course will be based. It includes: an overview of organic and analytical chemistry and the indispensable statistics and uncertainty evaluation as tools.

Section III – Advanced Food Chemistry

The cycle is devoted to a detailed study of advanced themes in food chemistry and chemical analysis. The very important topic, nowadays, on functional foods is included, together with food microbiology.

Section IV – Chemistry of Natural Products

The cycle focuses on the chemistry of natural products, as viewed through the study of specific families (alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids) and the laboratory techniques used for their isolation, identification and analysis. Their biosynthetic and metabolic paths are also included.

Section V – Topics in Food Sciences

The cycle focuses on other aspects of food production with reference to safety, preservation, quality assurance, legislation and chemical approach to the identification of specific origin.

Training sequence

Section I – Introductory Discipline

[7 ECTS] – from October to November

FQC.501 – Scientific English (3 ECTS)

FQC.502 – Introductory Computing (1 ECTS)

FQC.503 – Statistical Procedures (3 ECTS)

Section II – Fundamental Overviews

[6 ECTS] – November

FQC.511 – Organic Chemistry (3 ECTS)

FQC.512 – Analytical Chemistry I (3 ECTS)

Section III – Advanced Food Chemistry

[18 ECTS] – from November to February

FQC.521 – Foods/Lipids/Antioxidants (3 ECTS)

FQC.522 – Water Relations in Food – Food Carbohydrates (3 ECTS)

FQC.523 – Food Microbiology (3 ECTS)

FQC.524 – Food Protein and Enzymes (3 ECTS)

FQC.525 – Analytical Chemistry II (3 ECTS)

FQC.526 – Functional Foods and Bioactive Ingredients (3 ECTS)

Section IV – Chemistry of Natural Products

[15 ECTS] – from February to March

NPB.522 – Biochemistry of Secondary Metabolism (3 ECTS)

NPB.523 – Chemistry of Terpenoids and Essential Oils (3 ECTS)

NPB.524 – Chemistry of Alkaloids, Flavonoids and Other Phenolics (3 ECTS)

FQC.534 – Laboratory Techniques I (3 ECTS)

FQC.535 – Laboratory Techniques II (3 ECTS)

Section V – Topics in Food Sciences

[18 ECTS] – from March to June

FQC.541 – New Concepts in Food Packaging (3 ECTS)

FQC.542 – Trends in Food Processing-Preservation Technologies (3 ECTS)

FQC.543 – Food Product Development & Predictive Modeling of Food Quality (3 ECTS)

FQC.544 – Food Legislation (3 ECTS)

FQC.545 – Products of Appellation of Origin (3 ECTS)

FQC.546 – Quality Assurance (3 ECTS)

Master of Science Programme

Research Project (9 month duration)

Requirement : 60 ECTS credits Laboratory techniques (Related to the subject of the Master Thesis)

Research Subject Areas: (topics generally available for Master of Science thesis):

  • Isolation, structural elucidation of various natural products.
  • Antioxidants: isolation and screening for antioxidant activity.
  • Added value products from cheap, renewable sources.
  • Methodologies for the estimation of antioxidant activity and/or free radicals, peroxides.
  • Model systems to study mechanisms of antioxidant activity.
  • Toxicant residues in food.
  • Chemical fingerprinting of food and drink products: authenticity, origin.
  • Antifraud chemical methodologies.

Last update: 03 of February, 2012