Cocoa Flavanols - The Journey from Flavor Inhibitor to Potent Nutraceutical and Beyond
Join the Department of Food Science and Nutrition for this seminar series event featuring John Hammerstone.
A flavor research program looking at the differences in flavor potential of few cocoa varieties morphed into a biomedical research program for cancer therapies and vascular health. Hammerstone's talk will follow the journey of this research program, the biomedical discoveries, and how this knowledge can be leveraged for creation of new products.
Hammerstone has a B.S. in chemistry from DeSales University in Pennsylvania and an M.S. in Food Safety and Technology from the Illinois Institute of Technology. John worked at Mars, Inc. for over 30 years in a basic research environment focused on flavor and natural products chemistry. There the research team leveraged their expertise in analytical chemistry to uncover and elucidate the functionality of catechins and proanthocyanindins as well as create the benchmark analytical methods for measuring this class of flavanoids. These methods were used to create a USDA database on the concentration of these bioactives in commonly consumed foods as well as measure their active forms in-vivo.
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