Looking for an academic partner for your discovery projects?
Looking for an academic partner for your discovery projects?
Ghent University offers a unique proposal: the collaboration between veterinarians, physicians and scientists from different disciplines present at Ghent University takes the research to a higher level and creates many opportunities for innovation. At our Faculty of Veterinary Medicine these innovations can be tested in our own facilities and on the target species.
Check what we can offer in these fields
Ghent University offers a unique proposal: the collaboration between veterinarians, physicians and scientists from different disciplines present at Ghent University takes the research to a higher level and creates many opportunities for innovation. At our Faculty of Veterinary Medicine these innovations can be tested in our own facilities and on the target species.
Check what we can offer in these fields
Annemieke Madder
Professor
+32 9 264 44 72
Faculty of Sciences, Department of Organic & Macromolecular Chemistry
I am heading the Organic and Biomimetic Chemistry Research (OBCR) Group specialized in the design and synthesis of modified peptides and nucleic acids and methods for their conjugation and labeling – with biomedical, crop protection and food safety applications.
Within Food2Know, the OBCR Group developed artificial synthetic antibodies (SynABs) against toxins. Beauvericin (BEA) and enniatin B (ENN B) are mycotoxins produced on crops that end up in the final food or feed products. Also cereulide (CER), which is produced by bacteria has a high prevalence in ready-to-eat foods. Multiple consequences and even fatalities have been reported due to the consumption of food contaminated with BEA/ENN or CER. The current state of the art does not allow the production of antibodies against CER, BEA or ENN B via classical animal immunization. This hampers the creation of a fast, robust, inexpensive and on-field (kit-based) detection system for these toxins in food commodities. Within OBCR, we investigate the use of SynABs that bind to these ionophoric cyclic depsipeptide toxins to produce valuable technologies for detecting and isolating these toxins in complex food samples.