Most people commonly eat plant foods rich in starch, notably cereal products (e.g. bread, rice), and also some that are rich in fat (e.g. tree nuts). However, little is known about how such foods release starch and fat in the human gut and how, in turn, this may influence digestion and ultimately the absorption of nutrients into the body. Improving our understanding of these processes is important for basic scientists studying the behaviour of foods in the gut and their effects on metabolism. It is also important for health professionals and policy makers that are worried about excessive food consumption and the growing problem of obesity and associated problems of heart disease and diabetes. Moreover, the rate and extent of starch and fat digestion and absorption into the blood stream are important factors in altering the risk of heart disease. The release of fat and starch from plant foods and the digestion and absorption of these nutrients by the body are highly complex processes. Our progress in understanding these processes is impeded by the hugely complex structure and properties of plant foods and individual nutrients. Our project proposal brings together a unique combination of world experts from different institutions and disciplines. These experts have formed a large team in order to improve our knowledge of how edible plants behave in the gut and how the gut reacts to the starch and fat available for digestion. For example, it is important to know about the rate at which nutrients are released from plant foods as they move along the gut, since this will affect the time course of digestion and absorption. This in turn will influence the way the nutrients are metabolised within the body. We currently study almond nuts and cereals, e.g. wheat, to see how fat and starch are released from plant tissues. Starch, fat and other nutrients are found inside numerous cells that make up the plant tissue, e.g. an almond seed contains about 50 million cells. Such cells are very small in size, often with a diameter of less than about one tenth of a mm. One significant factor that seems to affect nutrient release from plant cells is the presence of cell walls, more commonly referred to in nutrition as 'dietary fibre'. How starch and fat are released from these cells is poorly understood. Initial studies will involve examining the role of cell walls as physical barriers in controlling the release and digestion of nutrients, using various methods to examine plant tissue at a cellular scale. One novel method will be the use of a recently established 'Dynamic Gastric Model', a computer-controlled simulation of digestion in the human stomach. We will also feed human volunteers with the same plant foods rich in fat and starch, to determine the effects of processing and mastication on nutrient release and digestion and the rate at which digested nutrients are transported into the blood stream. Finally, we will also produce a mathematical description of how fat and starch are released from edible plant tissues during digestion. It is envisaged that in the future, the use of mathematics will allow research scientists to predict the behaviour of similar foods in the gut without having to do so many laboratory experiments. This work will help the food industry to produce new food products or ingredients that have a controlled release of starch and fat in the gut, which could, for example, help to reduce the risk of heart disease. Indeed, Premier Foods, a large food manufacturer, has agreed to collaborate with us and provide scientific and technological expertise. Premier Foods has also agreed to provide cereals (e.g. wheat) and food products made with these cereals, all of which have been specially prepared to control starch release. These raw materials and food products will be used in our project to study how they behave in the gut and assess their potential benefits in reducing the risk of heart disease.

Centre vision: The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Food Manufacturing will meet the challenges of UK and global food security through developing world-leading technologies, tools and leaders, tailored to the specific needs of food products. With a turnover of £76.2bn (20% of the UK total), Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK employing around 400,000 people. With an anticipated rapid growth in 'better value' products and in products designed for the nation's Health and Wellness, in particular for the ageing population, food manufacturing requires innovation in increased productivity - to produce more from less - to preserve natural resources such as water and energy, to minimise waste generation and to decrease the trade deficit in the sector. Crucially this will enable the UK food sector to be at the forefront of the next generation of sustainable production which are more natural and healthier., and to develop more resilient supply chains leading to state of the art manufacturing capability, in an increasingly competitive landscape. The proposed research focuses on identifying not only new sources of raw material but also on reducing the demand on existing resources through a simultaneous improvement of food products, manufacturing methods and supply networks. In this context, some of the key research questions are: How do we fully valorise biomass (including waste re-use) as new sources of raw material in food production?; How can we design and manufacture products with the high nutritional values using fewer raw materials?; How do we improve the efficiency of food production processes (e.g. through smart monitoring technologies; process intensification / flexible manufacturing) to consume fewer resources (materials, energy and water) across the supply chain?; How can we eliminate the production and post-production waste caused by inefficient supply and manufacturing activities and /or relationships? The scope of the proposed research focuses on the manufacturing activities from 'post-farm gate to supermarket shelf', and will be considered under two specific Grand Challenges (GC): 1) Innovative materials, products and processes and 2) Sustainable food supply and manufacture. These research challenges closely align with the EPSRC call for 'Centres for Innovative Manufacturing', in particular the three areas of Resource Efficiency in Manufacturing: processes and technologies towards complete reuse of key materials and components; the need to dramatically reduce energy demand, including the incorporation of smart energy monitoring and management technologies; optimisation of material and product re-use, re-manufacturing and recycling, Innovative Production Processes: manufactured foods being complex formulated systems, and Complex Multifunctional Products: food is a high volume product assembled using processes which operate from the nano- (raw material) to the macro-scales (packaged goods). The proposed EPSRC Centre brings together world leading expertise in the areas of biomaterial science, formulation engineering and sustainable manufacturing. Loughborough and Nottingham are involved in the current EPSRC Centres and will ensure complementarities with other EPSRC research portfolios. The Centre will deliver demonstrable tools, methods and specific technologies, will develop academic and industrial leaders, and will provide evidence to support future policy making, thus ensuring the long-term competitiveness and security of the UK and global food supply chain. The proposal benefits from the interest and support of a wide range of stakeholders from ingredient producers and manufacturers to retailers and governmental organisations and has exploitation opportunities as the research challenges fit with the strategic themes in the new TSB High Value Manufacturing Strategy 2012-2015.

Wheat is the most important crop in the UK, giving average yields of about 8 tonnes per hectare and being used for food and livestock feed. However, the high yields and the high protein contents required for breadmaking both require high inputs of nitrogen fertiliser which is not sustainable in terms of cost, energy requirement for fertiliser production and environmental footprint. Furthermore, year to year variation in the weather conditions result in considerable variation in grain processing quality, which may nescessitate the import of high volumes of wheat in some years with impacts on the cost of bread and orther foods. It is therefore crucial that UK wheat production and quality are maintained to guarantee food security and maintain prosperity of the farming and food processing sectors. Data from field trials show that currently grown wheat varieties show significant variation in their response to N fertiliser, and in particular in their ability to produce grain with high protein content at the same levels of N application. Furthermore, they also differ in the extent to which the compositioon and quality of the grain are affected by environmental fluctuations. We propose to determine the molecular basis for these differences, by growing varieties known to differ in their response to N fertilisation and stability of quality in relicate field trials over several sites in the UK and three harvest years. We will then compare the expression of genes and the synthesis and accumulation of gluten proteins in the developing grain with the final composition and processing properties, and relate this to wider aspects of nitrogen use efficiency in the whole plant. This will allow us to identify genes and proteins whose expression correlates with grain nitrogen content and composition and with processing quality (including stability of quality from year to year). Some of these genes and proteins may be directly involved in determining the traits of interest and hence the work will lead to better scientific understanding. Others may not be directly involved but could nevertheless be developed as markers which can be used by plant breeders to select for improved wheat varieties. The project will therefore contribute to the more sustainable production of wheat in the UK.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) of cereals is caused by a number of fungi, chiefly Fusarium species. It is of particular concern because the Fusarium species produce trichothecene mycotoxins (DON, NIV, T2 and HT-2) within grain that are harmful to human and animal consumers. FHB disease poses an increasing threat to the UK wheat and barley crops. New species have appeared and spread in the UK for which climate change may, in part, be responsible. Future predicted climate changes are likely to exacerbate risks of epidemics in the UK. The EU recently set limits for DON and limits for T2/HT-2 are imminent. It is vital that the UK is positioned to be able to comply with this legislation. It is widely recognised that resistant varieties offer the best option to control FHB. All wheat and barley breeders consider it as a major but difficult target for resistance breeding. Incorporation of high levels of resistance to FHB into wheat and barley will be critical to prevent DON, T2, HT-2 and NIV mycotoxin contamination of grain from becoming a major problem for all elements of the UK food and feed chains. Timely application with appropriate fungicides can restrict disease development and mycotoxin accumulation. Under moderate to high disease pressure, however, fungicide application often fails to reduce DON contamination to below EU legislative limits in susceptible varieties such as those currently grown in the UK. Our previous work showed that much of the susceptibility of UK varieties is due to linkage between a gene that affects the height of wheat, Rht2 (also referred to as Rht-D1b) which is in almost all UK varieties, with a gene nearby on the chromosome that increases susceptibility to FHB. This association must be broken to enable breeders to produce FHB resistant varieties with acceptable agronomic characters. The project will produce molecular markers to the region about Rht2 allowing plant breeders to maintain this agronomically important gene in their breeding programmes while selecting against the linked FHB susceptibility factor. This project aims to identify resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB) in wheat and barley that will function against all the causal fungi associated with this disease. This project will focus on the identification of Type 1 resistance (resistance to initial infection) in wheat and barley. We have developed new tools to characterise so-called 'Type 1' resistance (resistance to initial infection), which is important for preventing infection of wheat and barley against Fusarium species that produce DON mycotoxin and those that produce the more toxic T2 and HT-2 toxins as well as against non toxin producing FHB pathogens such as Microdochium species. Plant breeding companies can immediately use the plant materials, genetic knowledge and molecular markers linked to FHB resistance within their breeding programmes to produce new resistant varieties with good characters for growing as crops in the UK. This project will determine how fungicide application influences disease and toxin accumulation in varieties with different levels of FHB resistance. The project will demonstrate how individual FHB resistances affect the RL disease score, revealing how many, and what forms of resistance are required to ensure that toxin levels in UK grain do not exceed EU limits. The project will identify the components required to establish a sustainable, integrated approach to ensure that toxin levels in cereal grain remain below EU limits. An integrated approach, based on varieties with significantly enhanced resistance and appropriate fungicide application offers the best means to achieve sustainable control of FHB and minimise the risk of mycotoxins entering the food and feed chains.

Soft Matter is ubiquitous, in the form of polymers, colloids, gels, foams, emulsions, pastes, or liquid crystals; of synthetic or biological origin; as bulk materials or as thin films at interfaces. Soft Matter impinges on almost every aspect of human activity: what we eat, what we wear, the cars we drive, the medicines we take, what we use to keep clean and healthy, in sport and leisure. Soft Matter plays a role in many industrial processes including new frontiers such as digital manufacturing, regenerative medicine and personalised products. Soft Matter is complex chemically and physically with structure and properties that depend on length and time scales. Too often the formulation of soft materials has been heuristic, without the fundamental understanding that underpins predictive design, which hampers innovation and leads to problems in scale up and reformulation in response to changing regulation or customer preferences. Durham, Edinburgh and Leeds Universities set up the SOFI CDT in 2014 in response to the challenge from manufacturers across the personal care, coatings, plastics and food sectors to provide future employees with the skills to transform the design and manufacture of soft materials from an art into a science. The dialogue continues with industrial partners, both old and new, which has resulted in this bid for a refreshed CDT in Soft Matter - SOFI2 - that reflects the evolving scientific, technological and industrial landscape. We have a new partnership with the National Formulation Centre, who will lead a training case study and contribute to the wider training programme, and with many new partners from SMEs to multinationals. We will seek to involve more small and medium-sized companies in SOFI2 by providing opportunities for them to engage in training and project supervision. SOFI2 will have increased training in biological soft matter, which has been identified as a growth area by the EPSRC and our partners, and in scale-up and manufacturing, so that our students can understand better the challenges of taking ideas from the laboratory to the customer. Social responsibility in research and innovation will be embedded throughout the training program and we will trial new ideas in participatory research where the public is involved in the creation of research projects. Each cohort of 16 students will spend their first six months on a common training programme in science and engineering, built around case studies co-delivered with industry partners. They then select their PhD projects and join their research groups in Durham, Leeds or Edinburgh. Generic and transferable skills training continues throughout the four years, bringing the cohorts together for both academic-led and student-led activities. We aim to produce SOFI2 graduates who are business-aware and who are good citizens as well as good scientists. The importance of Soft Matter to the UK economy cannot be understated. Industry sectors relying on Soft Matter include paints and coatings; adhesives, sealants and construction products; rubber, plastics and composite materials; pharmaceuticals and healthcare; cosmetics and personal care; household and professional care; agrochemicals; food and beverages; inks and dyes; lubricants and fuel additives; and process chemicals. A 2018 InnovateUK report estimate the formulated products sector (most of which involves Soft Matter) contributed £149 billion annually to the UK economy. The formulated products sector is undergoing a rapid transformation in response to a shift to sustainable feedstocks, environmental and regulatory pressures and personalised products. It will also be shaped in unpredictable ways by data analytics and artificial intelligence. SOFI2 will equip students with the knowledge and skills to thrive in this business environment.