ERASMUS+/ProFood: Growing the Tree of Plant Protein Biochemistry

The EU-sponsored ProFood program - aimed at MS students from Milan, Paris, and Copenhagen – will conclude this year. The project was meant to provide hands-on experience on what makes plant proteins unique. To reach this goal, teachers addressed the general biochemical and nutritional properties of plant proteins, and also their capacity to form and stabilize networks related to consumer-relevant properties, as well as the role proteins play in the bioavailability of macro- and micronutrients and in the possible formation of bioactive species when broken down by proteolysis. All through the ProFood program students were introduced to innovative technologies suitable for addressing the structural features of plant proteins and their modification upon physical and biological food processing. Also addressed were the biochemical basis of plant proteins bioactivity and the determinants of their accumulation in various species. In addition, non-biochemical experts from the involved institutions were able to put molecular-based information into the conceptual frame of sustainability of the whole food chain, with an additional accent on the valorization of plant proteins often considered as “byproducts”. The ProFood program started with teachers getting familiar with novel (and vastly improved) teaching approaches, and developed through mini-schools in each of the concurring Institutions – with a prominent active role of students – and monitored progresses by having the students themselves discussing challenges in the field and the possible approaches to tackle them appropriately. This approach also provided much needed feedback as for adjusting the contents and topics of subsequent mini-schools as well as for the efficacy of specific teaching approaches