Patricia López: "Multidisciplinary profiles are needed in food science and technology"
There is something very much ours in undervaluing what we have and admiring everything out there. However, it only takes a few minutes of chatting with profiles who have lived abroad, such as Patricia López Sánchez, to realize that we don't have so much to envy, at least at Campus Terra.
"Having this pilot plant in a university is a luxury," says the researcher, who graduated in Chemical Sciences from the University of Santiago in 2000. The plant she refers to is one of the key infrastructures of the Aula de Productos Lácteos y Tecnologías Alimentarias (APLTA) of Campus Terra, a research center of reference today both nationally and internationally.
There are few people as qualified to make this statement as Patricia López. For nearly twenty years, she developed her professional activity in companies and academic institutions in the Netherlands, Sweden and Australia. Along the way, she also participated in 43 international research projects and co-wrote more than 50 scientific articles.
The researcher, who has articulated her career around the area of food science and technology, has recently returned to Campus Terra, where she teaches several subjects and continues to work on her research, now focused on a small universe where there are still thousands of unknowns: algae.
-You graduated in Chemical Sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela, and shortly after, you moved to the Netherlands. What led you to make that decision?
-It was a bit of a coincidence because I finished my degree and I wanted to go there for a stay. The opportunity arose because there was a program, the Leonardo scholarship program, for internships in companies, and I was awarded one to go to Holland to a multinational food company. I didn't know what that company was, but when I got there, it was a very important multinational company, Unilever.
I was going to go for six months, and I stayed eight years at Unilever. I did my doctoral thesis with them: an industrial doctorate in collaboration with Unilever and a Swedish university, Chalmers University in Gothenburg, as part of a European project involving other universities and companies. It was a very enriching experience.
-What prompted you to stay there?
-When I arrived there, I was immediately offered the possibility of a contract and a career there. I started as an intern, and then they gave me a contract to work as a laboratory technician. After two years, they made me permanent and gave me more responsibilities as a scientist, what they call Assistant Manager of projects, and the opportunity to do my thesis with them, which allowed me to learn more about the food chain.
Being a multinational company, they have departments that range from those in charge of selecting which ingredients go into the products to all the production, microbiology, product development, sensory, consumer, and marketing.
It gave me an overview of the food industry. Until then, as a chemistry student, I had studied practically nothing about food and didn't know much about the food industry.
Now, you have returned to Campus Terra with a Ramón y Cajal contract, a high-level contract to attract talent. What does it mean for you to return to Spain and, more specifically, to your home university so long after?
-Yes, almost twenty years. I think the Ramón y Cajal contract is an opportunity for people like me, who have spent many years researching abroad. We are given the opportunity to return with decent conditions, both in terms of stability and financially.
In my case, the University of Santiago was not my first choice. I was going to go to another university, but I wanted to come to Galicia. Until the pandemic, I did not consider returning to Spain; during the pandemic, I became homesick and said, "I want to go back to Galicia." My husband is Swedish and loves Galicia, so if we found something in Galicia, we would come.
The University of Santiago was not my first choice, but when you are awarded a Ramón y Cajal, they contact you from many universities. And the University of Santiago, specifically Campus Terra, convinced me to come.
They convinced me first of all because of the infrastructure. I am associated with the Aula de Productos Lácteos y Tecnologías Alimentarias in Lugo, and the infrastructures here have nothing to envy to any university I have been to outside Spain.
Between the laboratories they have here, in particular the physical properties analysis laboratory, which is what I am an expert in, the pilot plant they have, and the fact that they improved the economic conditions, which in the end is also important, they trusted me and convinced me to come.
But it was a bit because of the Ramón y Cajal opportunity. It is not easy to get a Ramón y Cajal, and it is not that I am throwing flowers at myself, but they are very competitive and very valid people are left out. I say it was as if I had won the Christmas lottery.
-Talking about the Aula de Productos Lácteos, probably society, especially in Galicia, is often unaware that it is an innovation and transfer center of the highest level. They carry out very interesting projects there and have a very natural connection with the business fabric, which does not always happen in the university and research environment.
Yes, in the Aula, which originally was only about dairy products, now 50% or more of the projects are with the non-dairy food industry. We work with all kinds of foods and ingredients, not just dairy. We have many Galician and Spanish companies or industries, but we also collaborate with international companies.
For example, when we worked on European projects in Sweden, entering a pilot plant in Europe was very difficult because there were not so many pilot plants in universities. The ones there are not as complete and do not have the versatile equipment we have here. The fact that the University of Santiago has this center is a luxury.
Here, equipment and technologies can be used for many applications. It is necessary that all researchers at the University of Santiago, not to mention the Lugo Campus, know that APLTA exists, that it is open to all researchers and that there are opportunities for collaboration in European projects or national projects.
-During this time, he has continued training and developing his professional activity at an international level. You have been to the Netherlands, Sweden, and Australia. What have you learned from your experience in these countries?
-The first thing is that I would recommend all researchers who are starting or predoctoral researchers to go there for a while. But a long time. They should go to do a postdoc or a long stay in another country. Because it is enriching at all levels if only to come back and say: "It's not so bad here."
The last country I was in was Sweden. Now less so, but the first few months, people looked at me as if I was a freak: "But how did you come back from Sweden? Because at the University of Santiago, there is the same support for researchers and infrastructure as in any Swedish university, I think we have nothing to envy them.
What struck me the most? I had been away for twenty years and was totally disconnected from the Spanish university. The way of working is more flexible outside Spain. The research career is more dynamic; researchers move between centers, and stability comes much sooner... At that level, yes, we still have some way to go.
Something that is changing very fast? Transfer and innovation. I think the university is moving a lot, so this link between university and business is becoming increasingly important, and we are going hand in hand. We are moving very fast in this area. Until a few years ago, it was another thing that I would tell you is very different in Sweden, Holland or Australia. In these countries, the company and the university go hand in hand.
-The company practically lives inside the university.
-And not only the company but also the primary sector; for example, in Sweden, one of the big foundations that finance research is a farmers' cooperative, which has a foundation that finances research projects.
-In Galicia, we still have to advance along this mutual path. There are still many challenges, such as cooperativism connecting with science and research, which can lead to new products, techniques, methodologies, and machinery.
Yes, and we have to trust that research is long-term; it is not a matter of today for tomorrow. Maybe nothing will come out in five years, but then something will come out that will change the company or even the industry. You have to have a little patience with research.
-What projects have you been involved in in the past that may have the most scope or applications, both now and in the future?
-I try to correlate structural properties at different scales, from molecules, nanostructures, and microstructures, with the functional properties of foods. Functional properties are both techno-functional (how an ingredient works as a thickener, stabilizer, and emulsifying agent) and bio-functional (how that food behaves once we consume it).
My research is very applied in that sense. I would highlight the projects in which we have tried to reduce fruit and vegetable processing waste. We try to reduce that waste and process those fruits and vegetables in such a way that they naturally give texture and that we don't have to add thickeners or additives to the formulations.
When I was in Sweden, I ran projects with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enrich food for sub-Saharan countries. These are projects in which there is that part of philanthropy, of doing something that may not give a direct economic return but that benefit humanity by developing products for populations suffering from malnutrition.
Another project I am very proud of was a Swedish spin-off dedicated to commercializing products, such as carbohydrate drinks and gels, for marathon runners and elite athletes. Those products are being commercialized, and top marathoners are consuming them. This project also arose from basic research into hydrogels and polysaccharides; in the end, these products are on the market.
-And what lines of research are you currently focused on?
-I have always worked with fruits, vegetables and cereals. In the last four years, I have been focusing on algae. Both in microalgae and macroalgae. But especially with macroalgae because they have been identified as one of the future foods, and we will have to exploit them better. Europe has a lot of interest in financing projects of this type.
I focus on polysaccharides and proteins as ingredients, and algae have polysaccharides and proteins with a lot of potential. And they have very interesting technofunctional and biofunctional properties.
Right now, I'm very focused on algae as a source of ingredients and understanding how processing affects algae. Very little is known about algae; our processing techniques are not very complicated; they are simply heat treatments or mechanical or high-pressure treatments. I study how these processing conditions affect algae's functional and nutritional properties.
-There has been a lot of hype about algae. We probably have more control over terrestrial food, but there is still a universe to be discovered in the marine world. Is that so?
-Yes, a few species of algae have already been or are a source of food ingredients. Alginates, for example, have been used in the food and pharmaceutical industry for decades. The species still being researched are those we already know a little about, but there are hundreds of algae species we don't know anything about. And some green, brown, or red algae species may behave very differently within the same category.
My interest is in understanding why they behave differently. Understanding how the processing affects the cell walls, where the polysaccharides are connected, is important to optimize how we process them. But yes, there are many species for which everything is unknown. And now they are also starting to be cultivated at sea and on land. There is a lot to do in the world of algae.
And one thing is that we exploit them and produce new foods, and another is what nutritional value they have and what impact they can have on health. Just as we now know that blueberries have fiber and polyphenols, which are very good for health, there is still much research to do on algae.
-Why will research, and now with that natural connection to technological advances and the ability to process more powerful databases, be so important for the food industry in the coming years?
-In food science and technology, I think there are two main trends in research. One is related to the design of foods for specific populations: the elderly, who have certain nutritional needs and product texture; people with swallowing problems and dysphagia... The demand for vegetarian and vegan products is also a reality to which we must contribute. Everything that is a product for populations that have special needs.
The other big trends are digitalization, the use of big data in food, and artificial intelligence, a technology we will live with. In fact, we already have projects that we have been funded where we will use artificial intelligence to help us structure and analyze the data we get, such as microscopy data and images. Being able to use artificial intelligence helps to process those images much faster and much more rigorously.
Artificial intelligence can also help us, for example, to select and optimize the best processing conditions. Being able to tell AI, "This is the data we have, these are the conditions we have, these are the properties we've come up with, we have this kind of product... Where do we start?" Instead of going to the lab or the pilot plant and starting to play with these variables, AI tells us, "Start here." This is a reality.
-If the massive structuring of data is correlated with databases from different countries, the level of accuracy and the ability to get reliable data is much higher.
-Yes, the larger the sampling, the more information can be extracted. For example, we participate in projects where in vitro and in vivo digestion and fermentation studies are carried out, where hundreds of samples are collected with data on composition, structure, and microbiota. That is where we need this big data technology to analyze and extract information; otherwise, it is impossible.
-Could all this be applied to the design of biomaterials?
-Yes, because on the one hand, we are investigating the properties of ingredients (polysaccharides and proteins) as individual compounds, and on the other hand, we are investigating assemblies of these compounds in product formulations. This part of individual compounds of simpler systems has applicability for all materials.
In fact, we have projects where we are researching films that can be used for biodegradable packaging and hydrogels or aerogels that can be used for pharmaceutical applications, for example, for the controlled release of certain micronutrients or bioactive compounds.
These polysaccharides or proteins are like bricks that we can use to create different biomaterials with many applications.
-And what technologies are you working with on a day-to-day basis?
-Right now, we are using high-pressure homogenization technologies, which allow us to break the material to a degree that we can't do with other techniques. When we break the material, the algae, in this case, all these components, will be released, giving rise to different structures and textures.
We are also investigating fermentation: what happens to these algae when we ferment them, and what kind of components they generate. And everything related to thermal treatments, applying heat in different ways: the conventional way, but also through microwaves. We also study the release of components through ultrasound. In general, we use well-established and emerging technologies to study how to optimize the exploitation of vegetables, cereals, and algae.
-How did your vocation for food awaken? Was it gradual, or did life direct you toward that path?
-Life directed me to this path. I studied chemistry, and what I liked was chemistry, and in the curriculum I followed, there was almost nothing about food. When I did my internship at Unilever, I discovered what the world of food was all about, and I applied everything I learned about chemistry to the structure and properties of food.
All the knowledge I acquired during my studies helped me to understand food as a soft material with physicochemical properties. It doesn't matter if it is a food or any other system. Those fundamentals of chemistry that I learned helped me to understand food from a more fundamental point of view.
I think it's an area where, if you start, you get hooked. Anyone you talk to about what you do is interested in it. It is very applicable: we all eat and are all interested in eating well, and these foods positively impact health.
And the area of food science and technology is increasingly relevant. One of the great challenges of society is to try to feed the entire world population with the minimum impact on the environment and with foods that have attractive sensory properties because people ultimately want something that tastes good and has a nice texture but also has good nutritional properties that can have an impact on health.
I think it is an area where there is a lot to do, and right now, as research, it is a very attractive area where many things can be done.
-Finally, how do you see the future of this area? What profiles do you think will be indispensable in the coming years?
-I think that in this area, there is a need for multidisciplinary profiles. You can know a lot about chemistry, but if you don't know how those chemical properties will be reflected in a pilot plant or at the nutritional level... There is also a need for profiles focused on food physics, which I think is a bit forgotten: everything related to the rheological properties of food, not only the chemical properties but also the structural and material properties of food, are important.
Then, all the profiles related to digitalization and big data, software engineers dedicated to developing applications to investigate food production and design. We will need experts in the application of artificial intelligence to create and design new, more sustainable, and healthier products.
Then, in terms of agriculture, we need multidisciplinary profiles combining traditional agriculture knowledge with the sector's digitization. I would say that multidisciplinary profiles are needed in food science and technology.
For example, in my area, which focuses on food structure, all the techniques allow us to understand food at the molecular and nanostructural levels. I am lucky enough to collaborate with researchers from the CIAL/CSIC in Madrid, and we go to the synchrotron with food to study its nanostructure. Ten years ago, this was unthinkable; we would never have time for what is called synchrotron beam time to do food research. They were techniques mainly for medical applications, for drugs... Now, we can go to this type of large infrastructure with samples that are directly related to food, and there, we need more and more professionals who understand these techniques and know how to analyze these data.
If I had to say one word, I would say multidisciplinarity.