Food Biochemistry
The importance of marine products for the nutrition of our communities, together with the impact they may have on the environment, calls for actions that increase our security as consumers while decreasing their ecological cost.
The IIM-CSIC's Food Biochemistry group works to develop tools and bio-processes to demonstrate that a sustainable, responsible and resilient fishing industry is achievable by promoting an integral use of fish discards and fish by-products and by developing genetic molecular marker tools to improve traceability and authenticity. With this goal in sight, the Food Biochemistry group investigates along three main work lines.
The first line focuses on the development of analytical tools to allow for the identification and quantification of marine organisms by means of genetic molecular markers to control traceability and labeling of fishery products. The group contributes to improving traceability and sustainability of marine products by developing tools to prevent food fraud.
The second line strives to develop bioprocesses to valorize fish discards and fish by-products. By these means, the group tries to obtain bioactive compounds, such as collagen, chitin or fish protein hydrolysates, useful for different industrial applications.
Last but not least, the third line of work consists of the development of electronic tools or infrastructures to quantify total captures and analyze the optimal spatio-temporal conditions that contribute to more efficient fishing strategies.