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RESEARCH PROJECTS
Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) Prague
The Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague (ICT) is a public university providing education and pursuing scientific, research, development and implementation activities. The ICT was founded in 1952, but its roots date back to 1807 when the first course in chemistry was delivered at the Royal Czech Polytechnical Institute in Prague.
As regards food chemistry / analysis, the research is focused on the development and validation of modern instrumental analytical methods enabling (i) evaluation of novel foods and supplements, (ii) traceability of origin / mode production of food products, (iii) characterization of flavour significant compounds, (iv) control of occurrence of (protective) health promoting biologically active components, (v) determination of various hazardous compounds - both endogenous formed from respective precursors during food processing and environmental contaminants. The Department of Food Chemistry and Analysis has available modern instrumentation for sample processing and identification / quantitation of sample components.
The aim of the work:
To study to what extent the cultivation conditions may influence the level of health promoting as well as toxic secondary metabolites in food plants. To elucidate the correlation between the conditions during cultivation and product quality a number of species-specific compounds claimed to have health promoting activity or being natural toxins are studied in indicator organisms belonging to different plant families.
Recent and current participation in international research projects:
- PERFOOD (FP7–KBBE–2008–2B) PERFluorinated Organics in Our Diet
- CONffIDENCE (FP7–211326 – CP Collaborative Project) – Contaminants in Food and Feed: Inexpensive Detection for Control of Exposure
- TRUEFOOD (FOOD-CZ-2006-016264): Traditional United Europe Food. Hazardous chemical contaminants in traditional foods (control of mycotoxins during the production of traditional fermented food, processing contaminants – acrylamide and furans)
- BIOCOP (FP6–Food–2004–06988): New technologies to screen multiple chemical contaminants in foods. Development and validation of progressive analytical techniques for pesticides, environmental contaminants and natural toxins
- TRACE (FP6–Food–2004–006942): Tracing food commodities in Europe. Food authenticity - rapid and profiling methods, training and dissemination of knowledge
- Quality Low Input Food (Food–CT–2003–506358): Effect of crop management practices – organic, “low input” and conventional – the influence on the composition and quality of foods
- HEATOX (Food–CT–2003–506358): Heat generated food toxicants. Exploration of acrylamide formation and reducing its levels in processed food
- STAMPS (EVK1–CT–2002–00119): Standardized passive samplers. Sampling and determination of priority pollutants in surface waters – bioavailable fraction
- FIRE (QLK4–CT–2002–00596): Brominated flame retardants – integrated risk assessment for endocrine effects. Assessment of contamination levels, analytical techniques
- Pesticides in baby food (NATO for Peace – SfP-977983): Analytical methods and the effect of processing on pesticide residues – minimization of residues, HACCP
- COST 864: Combining traditional and advanced strategies for plant protection in pome fruit growing. Advanced mass spectrometric strategies for detection of pome fruit disease
- COST 867: Welfare of fish in european aquaculture. Metabolomic profiling: an efficient tool for fish welfare assessment
- COST OC 924: Health Promoting Components in Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. Food Crops from Organic Farming – influence of cultivation conditions (compounds selected as markers: furocoumarins in parsnip, glucosinolates in white cabbage, alkyl cystein sulphoxides in leek, lycopene and a-tomatine in tomatoes, a-solanine, a-chaconine, phenolic compounds in potatoes)
- COST OC 926: The fate of selected health protecting constituents during processing of food plants: analytical methods for phytoestrogens and prenylflavonoids in food; determination of phytoestrogens in soya foodstuffs and food supplements; examination of prenylflavonoids in hops and beer, study on the fate of soya phytoestrogens and hop prenylflavonoids during food / beer processing
- COST OC 927: Heat-induced hazardous compounds in processed foods. Investigation of volatile markers of acrylamide formation, SPME–GC
- GC–TOFMS profiles of volatile compounds released from chips during industrial /household frying, occurrence of furan in various thermally treated foodstuffs; processing experiments
- COST OC 636: Modern methods for analysis of xenobiotics in aquatic environment (synthetic musk compounds, alkylphenols, pharmaceuticals, organohalogen compounds incl. fluorinated hydrocarbons, and brominated flame retardants) Quality assurance in organic micropollutant analyses – guidelines for monitoring strategies, Occurrence of newly emerging xenobiotics in water system and biota
- COST OC 629: Pollution in natural porous media. Innovative sampling and analytical techniques for xenobiotics; influence of floods on the pollution of alluvial ecosystem
