AgResearch hat-trick in biotechnology awards

AgResearch scores hat-trick in biotechnology awards

Embargoed until 6am Tuesday 13 March 2007

For the third year in a row an AgResearch scientist has been named Emerging Biotechnologist of the Year by industry organisation NZBio.

Dr Mike North, Senior Food Engineer in AgResearch’s Food Metabolism & Microbiology Section, was awarded the coveted title last night (Monday 12 March, 2007) at the NZBio Conference Awards dinner.

The Emerging Biotechnologist of the Year award is presented to a scientist under the age of 35 whose achievements clearly demonstrate the potential for future leadership in biotechnology.

Dr North leads the meat quality and safety team based at the former Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand (MIRINZ), which is part of AgResearch’s Ruakura campus in Hamilton.

Dr North says he was surprised when he was told that he had won the award.

“I was driving and pulled over to answer my phone. I was shocked but delighted to hear that I had won as my work is in an area that is not probably considered ‘traditional’ biotechnology.

“Although people may no longer consider the meat processing industry as involving biotechnology, it is one of the most important biological industries for the country and technology has been instrumental in New Zealand’s international success. At AgResearch MIRINZ we are still working hard to keep the New Zealand meat industry at the top.”

AgResearch Chief Executive Officer, Dr Andrew West, nominated Dr North for the award and says his work has generated significant commercial benefit for the meat and food industries of New Zealand.

“His ongoing research has the potential to revolutionise the meat industry, and the team of researchers that he leads will play a key role in ensuring that New Zealand’s red meat industry remains internationally competitive.”

Dr North completed a B.Tech (Hons) in Food Technology from Massey University in Palmerston North in 1996 and in 2001 was awarded a PhD in Food Engineering by the same institution.

In May 2000, he accepted a permanent position at AgResearch MIRINZ as a researcher. He took on the leadership of a research project on modelling industrial cooking processes and measuring thermal properties of foods at elevated temperatures that was carried out under contract to Meat & Wool New Zealand and the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology (FRST).

As part of this work Mike was chosen by AgResearch to spend six weeks at the University of California Davis, to study state-of-the-art food modelling techniques.

AgResearch Food Metabolism & Microbiology Section Manager Dr Warren McNabb says Dr North not only learnt a lot from the trip but passed his knowledge on to industry in New Zealand.

“The models of cooking processes developed by Dr North have been passed on to New Zealand meat and food companies. These design tools have helped to ensure the achievement of high quality and safety outcomes with minimum cost and maximum product yield.”

Since July 2002 Dr North has led the Advanced Food Processing objective of the FRST-funded programme ‘Foods that Delight’. The goal of this programme is to add value to the New Zealand food industry through new knowledge and novel technologies that can customise food organoleptic properties (i.e. the taste, smell, mouth-feel, look and sound of food) to market requirements.

Dr North’s Advanced Food Processing objective has developed advanced design tools and implementation techniques to enable food manufacturing industries to create new premium foods. One example is the expansion of Food Product Modeller™ v.3, a user-friendly software package for the design of new food processes, and innovative fundamental models to predict thermal properties of complex food structures.

In July 2004, Mike took over leadership of a FRST and Meat & Wool New Zealand funded programme which measures and predicts meat quality attributes on-line using near infrared spectrometry.

“This technology has the potential to revolutionise the meat processing industry by non-destructively measuring the eating and keeping quality of all meat cuts on-line, in the processing plant – a feat never before achieved,” says Dr McNabb.

He says the work has been very successful to date, with a prototype spectrophotometer developed and calibrations against important meat quality attributes under development.

Dr North has been responsible for managing thirty staff over the last 18 months in the areas of meat science, food safety, and food engineering. He is Deputy Chair of the New Zealand International Institute of Refrigeration, an industry body that advises Government and private sector organisations.

“Under Mike’s leadership the section strengthened its relationship with the New Zealand meat industry by running the inaugural AgResearch MIRINZ Industry Workshop, which is aimed at disseminating the findings of new research and understanding the priorities of the industry,” says Dr McNabb.

The previous two winners of the award, Dr Adrian Cookson and Dr Sue McCoard, were also members of AgResearch’s Food Metabolism & Microbiology Section. “I have some fantastically talented colleagues who make working here very stimulating,” says Dr North.

ENDS

© Scoop Media