Home Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering
Mentor: Vayu Hill-Maini (Bioengineering)

“Fungal Up-Cycling for Novel Plant-Based Cheese”

The industrialized food system poses one of the greatest challenges to sustainability. In this project, Anna-Katharina will be exploring the use of fungal fermentation to up-cycle byproducts from the food and agricultural industry to develop a novel plant-based cheese. Anna-Katharina will be using Neurospora intermedia, a fungus traditionally used in Indonesian cuisine that has been found to produce cheeselike flavors and enhance nutrition. Anna-Katharina’s research aims to optimize growth conditions for sensory appeal and to characterize the genetic factors that contribute to these flavors.