Functional Carbohydrates

"Functional carbohydrates" is the term used to describe those carbohydrates that play an important role in strengthening immunity, decreasing the level of blood-lipid, and regulating the intestinal flora of humans, beyond those simply used as the energy-supplying materials. To date functional carbohydrates mainly cover dietary fiber, functional polysaccharides, functional oligosaccharides, sugar alcohols, and other functional monosaccharides. Functional Carbohydrates: Development, Characterization, and Biomanufacture facilitates tracking the important progresses in functional carbohydrates. This book addresses the history and recent developments of a selected number of important functional carbohydrates and it introduces the source, properties, and applications of a number of functional carbohydrates. It describes in detail the biomanufacture of these carbohydrates based on fermentation or enzyme catalysis, including the strain screening and improvement, optimization of fermentation process, and product downstream processing.

Jian Chen, PhD, is a professor of food biotechnology at Jiangnan University. Professor Chen got his PhD from Jiangnan University (former Wuxi University of Light Industry) in 1990. His research interests include stress tolerance and the response of food microorganisms, the production of food additives by biotechnology, and food safety issues in fermented foods. Using lactic bacteria and yeast as models, he investigated the roles of key genes and antioxidants on tolerance and response of food microorganisms to cold, acidic, oxidative and osmotic stresses. He has successfully achieved the industrial scale production of more than 30 different food additives by metabolic engineering and process optimization. He also screened and improved a series of food enzymes, which have been widely applied in juice processing and bakery areas. He is working on mechanisms inside the accumulation of nitrogen-containing small molecule harmful components during the production of fermented foods, such as ethylcarbamate and bioamines. Dr. Chen has published over 300 research articles and 16 invited reviews. He currently serves on the board of editors for eight peer review journals, including the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and Process Biochemistry. Professor Chen was named as a fellow of the International Academy of Food Science & Technology (IA FoST) 2012.

Yang Zhu, PhD, studied biochemical engineering at East China University of Science and Technology, where he worked also as a faculty member in the Department of Food Science and Technology, and the Department of Biochemical Engineering after his graduation. He also was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Microbiology of the University of Münster, Germany. Since 1993, he has been at TNO Nutrition and Food Research, the Netherlands and Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He received his PhD in bioprocess engineering in 1997 at Wageningen University. His main research focus covers food fermentation, bioprocess engineering, food nutrition, and pharmacokinetics. The author/coauthor of dozens of scientific publications and books, currently Dr. Yang Zhu is an independent consultant in agro-food and biotechnology in the Netherlands, as well as a guest scientist at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Song Liu, PhD, is an associate professor in School of biotechnology, Jiangnan University (China). He get his PhD from Jiangnan University (former Wuxi University of Light Industry) in 2011. He mainly engaged in teaching and research of genetic engineering and enzyme engineering. For nearly three years, he undertake three projects, including the project from Natural Science Foundation of China (31171639), the Foundation Research Project of Jiangsu Province (BK20130132), National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2015AA021003), and a number of enterprises projects. He had more than 20 papers published in SCI journals, such as Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Microbial Cell Factories, FEMS Microbiology Letters, etc. He was invited to review manuscripts for PloS ONE and Journal of Biotechnology. He has more than 20 authorized Chinese invention patents and 1 United States Patent.