Present and future climate change poses a significant challenge to global food security. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns, along with increased frequency of extreme weather events, directly affect agricultural practices, crops, and, consequently, food production and quality. We work on developing strategies that offer solutions in a context of uncertainty and change, without causing significant harm to the environment, and for the improvement of safe and sustainable food production and consumption. Additionally, a primary goal for us is educating and raising public awareness, as well as promoting cultural and social actions for safe and sustainable food.
Areas of expertise
Food safety; food technology; food analysis and control; food and health; food consumption; sociology of food; environmental pathogens; food systems; metabolism of food plants; food authentication; sustainable food production; food reutilization; revalorization of food by-products.
Research Lines
Sustainable Food and Health
Scientific advances in the etiology, diagnostic parameters, and dietary management of food histamine intolerance.
Effects of the Mediterranean diet in preventing cardiovascular disorders, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Protective mechanisms of moderate wine and beer consumption.
Sports nutrition, evaluation of nutritional status, and food composition.
Molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of bioactive food compounds on obesity development and healthy aging.
Innovation and evaluation of the benefits of bioactive compounds applied to foods and their effects on health.
Impact of the Mediterranean diet on cardiometabolic health.
Studied on huma obesogenesis and how obesogenic nutrition impacts global sustainability.
Studies on pathogenic mechanisms of foodborne pathogens.
Research on the impact of diet, food supplements, or bioactive compounds on the immune system and health during early life, pregnancy, lactation, and adulthood, with a focus on digestive diseases and infections.
Study of adaptive responses to hypoxic conditions.
Research on the relationships between dietary patterns, nutritional phenotypes, and risk factors for chronic diet-related diseases.
Study of the impact of food components on the immune system and microbiota.
Research on digestive physiology in fish species of aquaculture interest to address challenges in sustainable development of the practice.
Study of animal and vegetable fats to formulate and determine healthier alternatives to existing options.
Food Safety: Composition, Analysis, Control, and Authentication
Studies on antibiotic resistance genes in food viromes.
Development of analytical strategies to ensure food quality and authenticity using omics techniques.
Isotopic characterization of food authentication and prevention of food fraud.
Authentication of agrofood products using targeted and non-targeted approaches and chemometric data analysis.
Risk assessment of the use of insects as new products from human consumption.
Viruses and bacterial pathogens in food, viral gastroenteritis, enteric hepatitis, SARS-CoV-2, virus-host interactions.
Polyamines in food and the development of new bioactive ingredients.
Origin and evolution of bioactive amines in fresh and fermented foods. Risk assessment and control strategies to reduce accumulation.
Studies on microbial indicators of faecal contamination in water and food.
Sociology of Food
Study of socio-ecological changes in agrarian systems and the agroecological transition needed to address planetary boundaries, including analysis of energy and material flows in agroecosystems.
Implementation of the planetary health diet in educational and university settings.
Family transformations and dietary patterns in households and families, food and social policies.
Studies on perception and knowledge of food and food sustainability.
Sustainable Food Production
Sustainable food production: The case of rise.
Territorial impacts of new production philosophies (designation of origin, integrated agricultural production, organic production).
Studies on optimizing animal nutrition to improve the sustainability of livestock production.
New agroecological landscape models to guide the management and planning of green infrastructures towards sustainable ecosystem services.
Study of the role of pytohormones in regulating secondary metabolites in plants under environmental stress conditions.
Study of metabolism under physiological and pathological conditions in humans, livestock, and experimental models.
Research on the impact of climate change and unsustainable soil management practices on soil biodiversity, multifunctionality, and ecosystem services derived from agricultural soils.
Study of soil-plant relationships in organic agricultural systems with a focus on the quality of vegetables and fruits.
Development of biotechnological tools based on microorganisms to replace chemical fertilizers and increase crop resilience to climate change.
Food Valorization and Reutilization
Comparative studies of conventional agricultural practices and organic/agroecological practices, considering socio-ecological valorization and economic valorization circuits.
Use of fatty by-products from the food industry for animal feed: Definition and effects on nutritional quality and food stability.
Valorization of agrofood waste through the recovery of phytochemicals with antioxidant, anticancer, and antimicrobial properties.
Valorization of plant by-products from the food industry; Applicability in food safety and health.
Coordination
Francisco José Pérez has a degree in Pharmacy and is a doctor and associate professor in the Autoimmunity, Immunonutrition and Tolerance Research Group of the Biochemistry and Physiology Department of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona. He focuses his research on the interaction between diet, microbiota, immune system and health. Currently, he is also director of the Institute for Research in Nutrition and Food Security of the UB (INSA-UB), member of the board of the International Society of Immunonutrition (ISIN) and responsible editor of the nutritional immunology section of Nutrients magazine, among others.
Salvador Nogués is full professor of Plant Physiology and is part of the Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences Department at the Faculty of Biology. He has been working on sustainable production of cereals for more than twenty-five years. He has published extensively on different research topics, although lately his research has focused on the sustainable production of rice in the Mediterranean deltas including Ebro’s delta. He has been coordinator of the European Project NEURICE in which new lines of European rice (Oryza sativa) that harbour salinity tolerance have been produced to protect the rice sector from climate change and the invasion of the apple snail (Pomacea insularum). As part of this European project, salinity-tolerant rice varieties have been registered.
Francisco José Pérez has a degree in Pharmacy and is a doctor and associate professor in the Autoimmunity, Immunonutrition and Tolerance Research Group of the Biochemistry and Physiology Department of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona. He focuses his research on the interaction between diet, microbiota, immune system and health. Currently, he is also director of the Institute for Research in Nutrition and Food Security of the UB (INSA-UB), member of the board of the International Society of Immunonutrition (ISIN) and responsible editor of the nutritional immunology section of Nutrients magazine, among others. 
Salvador Nogués is full professor of Plant Physiology and is part of the Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences Department at the Faculty of Biology. He has been working on sustainable production of cereals for more than twenty-five years. He has published extensively on different research topics, although lately his research has focused on the sustainable production of rice in the Mediterranean deltas including Ebro’s delta. He has been coordinator of the European Project NEURICE in which new lines of European rice (Oryza sativa) that harbour salinity tolerance have been produced to protect the rice sector from climate change and the invasion of the apple snail (Pomacea insularum). As part of this European project, salinity-tolerant rice varieties have been registered.