News archive
2021
DECEMBER
Christina Hempel joins our group and will start her PhD thesis on the "Gluten network in spelt and emmer". Welcome to our group!
We say goodbye to Annika Schmidtke who supported several projects as a scientific assistant and we wish her all the best for her future!
The new S2k Guideline for Diagnosis and Therapy of Celiac Disease of the German Society for Gastroenterology, Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gastroenterologie, Verdauungs- und Stoffwechselkrankheiten, DGVS) is available HERE. Thank you to all authors and collaborators, especially all experts in the "Therapy of Celiac Disease" group, for this important contribution to help improve early recognition and management of celiac disease.
Our baking lab was featured in "alles wissen" by HR-Fernsehen in the part called "Backen ohne Zucker und Mehl" (Baking without sugar and flour) on Dec. 16, 2021. We show how the different ingredients of a typcial cake recipe, such as eggs and sugar, act in the dough. Take a look at some of the chemistry of baking HERE.
NOVEMBER
Sabrina Geisslitz joins the Editorial Board of Cereal Chemistry as an Associate Editor. In her new role she is responsible for handling manuscripts all the way from submission to final decision. We wish her many high-quality manuscripts!
Katharina Scherf joins the Associate Editor team for the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Having served as an Editorial Advisory Board member for the journal since 2019, she takes up this role together with two more new colleagues, John Munafo and Min-Hsiung Pan. Find out more in the editorial to volume 70, issue 1, HERE.
Melanie Leitner joins our group as a scientific assistant. Welcome to our group!
OCTOBER
Sabrina Geisslitz shares insights on gluten, wheat and wheat-related disorders in the Podcast Wissen Weekly: Gluten, Lactose & Co: Where do our food-related disorders come from? Listen to the full episode on Spotify HERE.
SEPTEMBER
Lisa Geißendörfer and Eleonora Tissen start their MSc theses on gluten-degrading dietary supplements and on gluten-free beers. Welcome to our group!
Shpresa Musa joins our group and will start her PhD thesis on "Acrylamide reduction in cereal products". Welcome to our group!
JULY
New paper in Frontiers in Nutrition
A strict lifelong gluten-free (GF) diet is currently the only known effective treatment for celiac disease (CD). However, a GF diet tends to reduce the quality of life of CD patients and may lead to fear of inadvertent gluten consumption, especially when eating out. To help alleviate risk of gluten exposure, a portable gluten sensor was developed that allows CD patients to test foods on site prior to consumption. We evaluated the reliability of the sensor using a variety of different foods with defined gluten content and samples containing partially hydrolyzed gluten. Overall, the performance of the sensor was acceptable, but we observed systematic variation between different users that also appeared to depend on the sample being tested. The full text is available here: doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.712992
Dr. Barbara Lexhaller starts as a research fellow in our group. She will work on identifying crosslinks between transglutaminase 2 and gluten peptides in the context of celiac disease. Welcome to our group!
JUNE
Our BMEL-funded project ReBIOscover has started! Together with our partners, we aim to intensify research on old wheat, rye and barley landraces and test them in practice with the support of mills and bakeries. We will analyse the ingredients of different grain varieties and produce organic food specialities with special aroma and taste qualities and improved processing properties. Find more information in the full press release... (in German)
Lukas Buck joins our group and will start his PhD thesis on "Molecular analysis of flour fractions and extracts to predict wheat baking properties". Welcome back to our group!
Annika Schmidtke joins our group as a scientific assistant. Welcome back to our group!
MAY
Lukas Buck, Stefanie Hofmann and Annika Schmidtke successfully completed their MSc theses. Congratulations and all the best for the future!
MARCH
Patrick Gröger starts his MSc theses on the effect of different lipases on dough and baking properties of fine bakery goods. Welcome to our group!
FEBRUARY
Nora Jahn joins our group and will start her PhD thesis on "Rediscovery of regional ancient grain varieties". Welcome back to our group!
JANUARY
Sarah Jöstl continues her PhD thesis on "α-Amylase/trypsin inhibitors in rye and barley products". Welcome to our group!
Ruben Spohrer joins our group as a chemical-technical assistant and will work on different projects. Welcome to our group!
2020
DECEMBER
Nora Jahn and Alena Maric successfully completed their MSc theses. Congratulations and all the best for the future!
NOVEMBER
Lukas Buck and Annnika Schmidtke start their MSc theses on comparative analysis of proteins from different wheat species and on new extractions for cereal protein fractionation. Welcome to our group!
OCTOBER
Nina Höller and Christine Kämper start their PhD theses on the "Relationship between process parameters, structure and functionality of vital gluten" and on "Untargeted and targeted proteomics analysis of wheat related to baking quality". Welcome to our group!
SEPTEMBER
New paper in Scientific Reports
The ancient wheat species einkorn, emmer and spelt are cultivated in very low amounts compared to the modern wheat species e.g. common (bread) wheat. Some consumer report that they feel more comfortable with ancient wheat species and that they have less symptoms typical for wheat sensitivity and other intestinal disorders. One hypothesis was that the contents of amylase/trypsin-inhibitors (ATIs) increased during the development of modern wheat species. We showed by quantitation of 13 ATIs by LC-MS/MS that the ancient spelt had higher ATIs contents that common wheat independently of three growing locations. The full text is available here: doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-71413-z
JULY
New papers in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and Cereal Chemistry
Epidemiologic studies suggest an increasing prevalence of celiac disease and nonceliac gluten/wheat sensitivity. One hypothesis is that wheat breeding over the course of the last century might have caused changes in the composition of wheat proteins. To verify or falsify this hypothesis, we investigated agronomic and proteomic characteristics of a well-defined sample set comprising the 60 most widely grown winter wheat cultivars in Germany from 1891 to 2010 grown in three consecutive harvest years together with Hans Weber and Andreas Börner from the Leibniz-Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben, Germany. At protein level, we found no evidence to support an increased immunostimulatory potential of modern wheats compared to old wheat. A new data evaluation approach allowed us to map the protein fingerprints of the different cultivars in greater detail and to identify exceptional samples. The full texts are available here: doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.0c02815 
and here: doi: 10.1002/cche.10323
New book
Our book "Wheat - An Exceptional Crop: Botanical Features, Chemistry, Utilization, Nutritional and Health Aspects" is available now. We discuss the benefits of wheat from a wheat science, nutrition and technology perspective and provide an overview of adverse reactions to wheat. Find out more here: ISBN 9780128217153
JUNE
New paper in Frontiers in Plant Science
As a result of our successful collaboration over many years, our joint paper together with Eszter Schall, Zsuzsanna Bugyi, Kitti Török, Peter Koehler, Regine Schoenlechner and Sándor Tömösközi was just accepted today in Frontiers in Plant Science. We report our work entitled "Further steps towards the development of gluten reference materials – wheat flours or protein isolates?". The full text will be available soon here: doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00906
MAY
New book chapter in the Reference Module in Food Science
Our invited contribution entitled "Proteomics in Food Quality" in the Reference Module in Food Science is now available online. Dr. Sabrina Geisslitz and I provide an overview of proteomics techniques and definitions of food quality and discuss interesting applications of proteomics to study milk and dairy products, eggs, meat and cereals. Find out more here: doi: 10.1016/B978-0-08-100596-5.22762-5
MARCH
Heidi Strumpf starts as a secretary and will take care of all sorts of administrative tasks and support all of us as our competent contact person. Welcome to our group!
Nora Jahn and Alena Maric start their MSc theses on α-amylase/trypsin inhibitors and gluten detection. Welcome to our group!
FEBRUARY
New paper in Frontiers in Nutrition
Our collaborative paper from the Prolamin Working Group (PWG), namely Carlo Catassi, Fernando G. Chirdo, Paul J. Ciclitira, Conleth Feighery, Carmen Gianfrani, Frits Koning, Knut E. Lundin, Detlef Schuppan, Marinus J. Smulders, Olivier Tranquet, Riccardo Troncone and Peter Koehler, entitled "Recent progress and recommendations on celiac disease from the Working Group on Prolamin Analysis and Toxicity" was just accepted today in Frontiers in Nutrition. Based on the current state of knowledge, this perspective from the PWG members provides recommendations regarding clinical, analytical and legal aspects of celiac disease. The full text will be available soon here: doi: 10.3389/fnut.2020.00029
JANUARY
Sabrina Geißlitz receives the scientific award of the Association of German Industrial Bakeries
On January 17, 2020, Dr. Sabrina Geißlitz was awarded with the scientific award of the Association of German Industrial Bakeries (Verband Deutscher Großbäckereien e.V.) during the 49th Scientific information meeting of the Berlin-Brandenburg Association for Grain Research (Berlin-Brandenburgische Gesellschaft für Getreideforschung e.V.) in Berlin, DE. The prize honors her excellent PhD thesis entitled "Proteins of einkorn, emmer and spelt: Influence on baking quality and role in wheat-related hypersensitivities".
Press release of the Verband Deutscher Großbäckereien e.V.
Presentation of the award to Dr. Sabrina Geißlitz by the managing director of the Association of German Industrial Bakeries, Armin Juncker (left) and Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich Meuser (right). © Verband Deutscher Großbäckereien e.V.
Dr. Sabrina Geißlitz starts as a research fellow in our group. Her research focuses on technofunctional, analytical and health-related aspects of ancient cereals such as spelt, emmer and einkorn. Welcome to our group!
2019
DECEMBER
Charlotte Stemler starts her PhD thesis on “Substrate specificities of baking lipases in fine bakery goods”. Welcome to our group!
OCTOBER
New paper in Frontiers in Plant Science
Our review together with Thais O. Alves, Carolina T. S. D'Almeida and Mariana S. L. Ferreira entitled "Modern approaches in the identification and quantification of immunogenic peptides in cereals by LC-MS/MS" was just accepted today in Frontiers in Plant Science. We discuss the main proteomic techniques used in the identification and quantitation of gluten peptides related to celiac disease activity and wheat-related allergies. Read the full text here: doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.01470
SEPTEMBER
On September 26, 2019, Katharina Scherf was awarded with the Science Award of the Heinrich-Stockmeyer-Foundation (Wissenschaftspreis der Heinrich-Stockmeyer-Stiftung) during the 59th Food Hygiene Workshop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, DE. The award recognizes outstanding research projects in food sciences and is endowed with 5000 Euros. In accordance with the purposes of the Foundation, the award-winning projects offer practical solutions and application-oriented research to improve food safety and consumer protection as well as to strengthen consumer trust in food quality and safety. Scherf receives the prize for her habilitation thesis and, more specifically, for the development of a new test to detect gluten in cereal products that is already commercially available and more accurate than previously used methods.
AUGUST
Majlinda Xhaferaj starts her PhD thesis on “Improved reference materials for the analysis of gluten from wheat, rye and barley”. Welcome to our group!
Together with Alberto Caminero, Michelle Colgrave and Melanie Downs, Katharina Scherf is Guest Editor for the Research Topic “Gluten, from plant to plate: Implications for people with celiac disease” in Frontiers in Plant Science and Frontiers in Nutrition (Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland). The deadline for manuscript submission is August 16, 2019.