Meet our Core Group
Susana Soares
Valentina Figueroa
Laura Laguna
Ignacio García Estévez
Violeta Ivanova-Petropulos
Maik Behrens
Maarten Jongsma
Elsa Lamy
Nishat Tahsin
Fabrice Neiers
Nagihan Bostanci
Sana Ben Othman
Meet our
MC Committee
You can find a full list of the Management Committee involved in the FLAVOURsome Cost Action on the COST website.
Meet our Working Groups
To achieve the scientific objectives of this Action, the responsibility for the implementation of specific tasks will be allocated to 5 selected and interrelated WGs. This Action will be coordinated by the Action Management Committee (MC) led by the MC Chair and Vice-Chair.
WG1 • Chemical and physico-chemical profiling of food matrices
Chemical and physico-chemical profiling of food matrices: chemical structure, sensory properties and machine learning
WG1 is designed to assemble a comprehensive and systematic platform, collecting all the available data regarding plant-based food matrices, major compounds present, perceived sensory properties, identified compound interactions (e.g. masking abilities, food matrix effects), thresholds, specific references and literature for each compound or food matrix and used methodology.
WG2 • Translation multimodal oral processing
Translation multimodal oral processing: from chemosensory to somatosensory sensations
WP2 is aimed at connecting different disciplines and approaches for solving critical aspects of food taste, aroma and trigeminal sensations.
To achieve this, WG2 will consider human saliva characteristics and the way they can affect molecule release and flavour perception, as well as how inter-individual aspects may contribute to different perception. This WG is also specifically focused on exploring the application of new techniques (e.g. cell assay, patch clamp, etc.) and approaches (e.g. neurosciences) that are not so commonly used in this area, to deep the knowledge about taste, aroma and trigeminal sensations. In-vivo, in-vitro and ex-vivo studies are considered in this WG.
WG3 • Food and oral rheology and tribology inputs to flavour properties
WG3 is aimed at exploiting the potential of rheology and tribology parameters in-mouth to understand their influence on multimodal flavour perception. The texture and/or viscosity modification in a food system helps manipulate its sensory properties to have the desired sensory perception. One of the main problems is that the potential of these techniques has been restricted due to the lack of understanding of the choice of test and the interpretation of the obtained data in relation to sensory analysis.
WG4 • Development of models toward implementation in food chain-production
WG4 aims to enhance synergies between Academia and Industry to explore the potential of the created and established knowledge, to develop suitable and advanced technology, and to add value to some industries. FLAVOURsome is going to consider both the origin of plant proteins (e.g. soybean, horse bean, lupin, pea) but also the degree of purity of the proteins (e.g. flour, concentrate) and the formation of potential supramolecular edifices between plant proteins and polyphenols, which could explain the astringency of plant proteins. It will also explore the impact of processing on protein texture perception such as pressure/shear/temperature process.
WG5 • Dissemination and engaging society and consumers
This is a generic and overarching WG that aims to coordinate and promote the dissemination among WGs, Action Participants, stakeholders, and consumers. The main activities will be linked to coordinate, support, promote, and evaluate all dissemination activities of the results of all WGs within this COST Action, allowing knowledge exchange and providing feedback to the other WG Leaders.
