CCL News

• Dr. Li edited and published a new book with Springer-Nature titled "Plant-Based Proteins: Production, Physicochemical, Functional, and Sensory Properties". Thanks to all the collaborators and chapter contributors! (12/2024)

• Congratulations to our three new PhDs, Dr. Zhenjiao Du, Dr. Meicen Liu, and Dr. Xuexue Wang! (12/2024)

• Our research is highlighted in the Fall 2024 issue of K-State Seek Research Magazine!

• Congratulations to Zhenjiao Du on the successful defense of his PhD disseration, "Machine learning empowered discovery of bioactive peptides from food proteins and beyond"! (10/2024)

• Our team was well represented at the 2024 Cereals & Grains – Chemistry, Quality, and Technology Conference, with four oral presentations and one poster from three graduate students and two post-docs. (10/2024)

• Congratulations to Zhenjiao Du on receiving the the University Distinguished Professors Excellence in Doctoral Studies Award of Kansas State University! (10/2024)

• Congratulatoins to Dr. Gengjun Chen on starting a new position as Assistant Professor of Food Science at South Dakota State University! (10/2024)

• Welcome three new PhD students join our group from around the world (Roshaa from Iran, Xuhuan from China, and Sadia from India), starting Fall 2024! (08/2024)

• Congratulations to Ruoshi Xiao on graduation from our Master's program! (05/2024)

• Congraulations to Ruijia Hu on the successful defense of her PhD disseration, "Deriving and characterizing antioxidants and proteins from corn and its coproducts"! (10/2023)

• Welcome these new members join us since this 2023 summer: Michael Stump, PhD student; Ruqi Chen, research technician; Olusola Olagunju (Sola), PhD student; Anaya McCune, student worker; Nandan Kumar, postdoc; Shan Hong, postdoc. Warmly welcome!! (09/2023)

• Congraulations to Cheng Li on the successful defense of her PhD disseration, "Investigating and optimizing bread-making properties of whole wheat flour". (08/2023)

• Our recent work in Briefings in Bioinformatics (IF 13.994, #1 out of 57 in Mathematical & Computational Biology) releases a new universal deep-learning architecture (UniDL4BioPep) and web server by integrating the latest pre-trained protein language model with a convolutional neural network for peptide bioactivity prediction. The new model outperformed state-of-the-art models for 15 out of 20 different peptide bioactivity/function prediction tasks. The new user-friendly web server may accelerate bioactivie peptides screening and their practical applications. (04/2023)

• Dr. Li has been invited and appointed as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Food Science. Being an associate editor is a significant responsibility and a great opportunity to contribute to the scientific community. (01/2023)

• Congraulations to Eric Nkurikiye​ for graduating with a master's degree in Grain Science. Cheers! (12/2022)

• Congratulations to Zhenjiao Du for being selected as one of the College of Agriculture’s (CoA) Graduate Students of the Month for November, 2022! (11/2022)

• Our patent "Antioxidant protein hydrolysates and peptides from cereal grain crops" is granted, Patent Number: 11,371,070. Cheers. (06/2022)

• Dr. Li, in collaboration with Dr. Susan Sun and Dr. George Wang, has been awarded a K-State Global Food Systems seed grant, "The Discovery of Bioactive Antioxidants in Wheat Brans for Retarding Skin and Health aging," $200,000. (06/2022)

• Congratulations to Zhenjiao Du on receiving a $500 travel scholarship from the Kansas City Section of the Institute of Food Technologists (KCIFT) to attend IFT FIRST 2022! (06/2022)

• Congratulations to Ruijia Hu on receiving a $500 Graduate Student Research Scholarship from the Distillers Grains Technology Council (DGTC)! (05/2022)

• Two papers "Improvers and functional ingredients in whole wheat bread: A review of their effects on dough properties and bread quality" and "Drying methods affect physicochemical and functional properties of quinoa protein isolate" from CCL are recongzied as Highly Cited papers by Web of Science. "As of November/December 2021, this Highly cited received enough citations to place it in the top 1% of the academic field of Agricultural Sciences based on a highly cited threshold for the field and publication year." (03/2022)

• Dr. Li has been promoted to associate professor with tenure! Cheers! Click here for the news. (03/2021)

• Congratulations to Tina for receiving the AOCS Hans Kaunitz award with $1,000 and a $500 travel stipend. She will present her research “Modulating intermolecular interactions of pea protein isolate to improve its functional properties” during the annual meeting and expo for the American Oil Chemists’ Society online event in May. (03/2021)

• Dr. Li, in collaboration with Dr. Donghai Wang from K-State and Dr. Haibo Huang from Virginia Tech, has been awarded a $500k USDA/NIFA grant, focusing on the "Value-added production of antioxidants from sorghum protein to enhance economic viability and sustainability of sorghum fuel ethanol" (2021-2024). (03/2021)

• Congratulations to Wenfei Tian on the successful defense of his PhD dissertation, "Wheat antioxidants: Understanding changes of phenolic profiles in the wheat food chain and developing rapid quantification methods". (01/2021)

• Congratulations to Yiqin Zhang on the successful defense of her MS thesis, "Investigating dough rheology and texture properties of bakery products containing soy or pulse flours". (01/2021)

• Welcome Dr. Shan Hong join us a postdoc, and Eric Nkurikiye as a MS student. (01/2021)

• Dr. Li has been awarded two competitive grants from the USDA Pulse Crop Health Initiative (PCHI), among the 15 newly funded projects from 80 applications. One is to investigate "Dough rheology, baking performance, and bread sensory quality of pulse-fortified whole wheat flours" (2020-2024); the other is on "Developing and utilizing functionally enhanced pulse proteins as novel food ingredients" (2020-2024). (08/2020)

• Our most recent review "Advanced properties of gluten-free cookies, cakes, and crackers: A review" is published in Trends in Food Science and Technology. (08/2020)

• Li has been awarded $300k USDA/NIFA Grant (2020-2023). Announcement available through this link. (08/2020)

• Tina won second place in the International Division Malcolm Bourne poster competition at the IFT20 Annual Meeting & Food Expo (virtual) on July 12-15. Congratulations! (07/2020)

• Many of the Cereal Chemistry group members are at the Cereals & Grains 2019 Conference in Denver. We presented six papers, and Dr. Li co-organized and -moderated the symposium "Glyphosate and cereal grains: Separating the wheat from the chaff". (11/2019)

• We welcome two new PhD graduate students joining the cereal chemistry team, Ruijia Hu (our own MS graduate) and Cheng Li (MS of Food and Nutrition from Chonnam National University! (08/2019)

• Congratulations to Ruijia Hu and Lauren Tebben for the successful defense of their Master's degree! Ruijia's thesis is entitled "Deriving and Evaluating Alternative Antioxidants from Corn Coproduct Proteins", and Lauren's is about "Effect of Enzymes, Hydrollcolloids, and Emulsifiers on Qualities of Dough and Bread Made from Whole Grain Wheat Flour". (07/2019)

 

 

 

• Check out our recent review paper on glyphosate contamination in grains and foods. (06/2019)

• Gengjun Chen presented two papers at the IFT2019 meeting held in New Orleans. (06/2019)

• Yanting Shen (Tina) presented her research at the 2019 AOCS annual meeting in St. Louis. She also received the AOCS Lipid Oxidation and Quality (LOQ) Division Student Travel Grant. Congratulations! (05/2019)

• Congratulations to several CCL members on receiving Grain Science departmental awards! (04/2019)

  • Yanting Shen (PhD student), GSI Dr. C.E. Walker International Graduate Student Fellowship

  • Wenfei Tian (PhD student), GSI Majel M. MacMasters Memorial Achievement Award

  • Ruijia Hu (MS student), GSI Cain Land and Grain Value Added Agriculture Scholarship

• CCL group photo - Spring 2019 (04/2019)

• We welcome two new graduate students joining the cereal chemistry team, Yiqin Zhang (bachelor of food science from Kansas State University, 2018) and Shayna Smith (bachelors of both food science and nutritional sciences from Texas A&M University, 2018)! (01/2019)

• Dr. Li was invited to display our gluten-free soy bread research at the Kansas Soybean Expo'19 in Topeka. We appreciate the Kansas Soybean Commission for sponsoring the project. (01/2019)

• Dr. Li was invited to present at the International Wheat Quality Symposium 2018 (Shenzhen) and visit several universities (Zhejiang University, Henan University of Technology, and Jiangnan University) during mid. December in China. (12/2018)

 

• Two papers from CCL have been accepted to publish recently, well done! (08/2018)

  • Lauren Tebben, et al., Improvers and functional ingredients in whole wheat bread: A review of their effects on dough properties and bread quality, Trends in Food Science and Technology ;

  • Wenfei Tian, et al., Phenolic acid composition and antioxidant activity of hard red winter wheat varieties, Journal of Food Biochemistry

• Tina received the 2018 Outstanding Doctoral Student Scholarship award from the IFT-Kansas City section, congratulations! (08/2018)

• Dr. Li leads the Kansas Wheat Quality Lab (WQL) as the interim director to support the KSU wheat breeding program. Our baking research capability will be further strengthened, in addition to our current Cereal Chemistry Lab. Available equipment in the WQL includes Perton NIR, Brabender® Quadrumat® Senior mill, Udy cyclone grinder, Falling Number® System, Glutomatic® System, RVA, doughLAB/farinograph, mixograph, pin mixers, fermentation cabinet, dough sheeter/molder, TMCO reel oven, C-cell imaging system, TA XTPlus texture analyzer, etc. Available equipment in our CCL includes two Agilent HPLC 1100 systems with different detectors, Shimadzu GC-MS QP2010-SE system, BioTek microplate reader, VWR double beam spectrophotometer, Avanti J-E High-Performance Centrifuge, Labconco Freezone4.5 freeze dryer, gel electrophoresis system, rotary evaporator, sonicator, etc. (07/2018)

• Congratulations to Shiwei Xu for the successful defense of her Master's degree! Her thesis is entitled "Development and Characterization of Peptide Antioxidants from Sorghum Proteins". (07/2018)

• CCL members attended and presented at the IFT 2018 meeting in Chicago. Two of our posers were selected into the finalist for division competitions. (07/2018)

 

• CCL group photo, summer 2018. (07/2018)

• Three papers were published recently from CCL: (06/2018)

  • Chen et al., 2018. Potassium chloride affects gluten microstructures and dough characteristics similarly as sodium chloride. J. Cereal. Sci., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcs.2018.06.008.

  • Chen et al., 2018. Effect of sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate on the physicochemical properties of soft wheat flour doughs and gluten polymerization. J. Agric. Food Chem., 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b01197

  • Shen et al., 2018. Bread characteristics and antioxidant activities of Maillard reaction products of white pan bread containing various sugars. LWT, 95, 308-315.

• CCL welcomes several new members! (05-06/2018)

  • Yanting Shen started as a PhD student in the summer semester. She had her BS and MS in Food Science from K-State.

  • Gaganpreet Singh will start as a Master student in the fall semester. He had a BS in Bakery Science and Management from K-State.

  • Yiqin Zhang joined us in May as a research assistant. She's currently a senior in Food Science at K-State.

  • Xiao Tang from Ningbo Polytechnic joined us in June as a visiting scholar and will stay with us for the next 3 months.

• Dr. Li received a grant from Kansas Wheat Commission to study phytochemicals of Kansas wheats. (05/2018)

• Three CCL members received awards at the department's 2018 Annual Student Scholarship and Industry Awards Banquet. Congratulations! (04/2018)

  • Gengjun Chen - received the Dr. Evangelina Villegas Excellent in Post Doctoral Research Award.

  • Shiwei Xu- received the Outstanding Graduate Student Awards Sponsored by Ingredion.

  • Ruijia Hu - received the Lola Lee Jackson Animal Welfare Foundation Fund Travel Award.

• Dr. Li received a continuous grant support from Kansas Corn Commission for the development and application of bioactive corn peptides. (02/2018)

• Dr. Li received a grant from Kansas Soybean Commission to develop gluten-free bakeries using soy products. (02/2018)

• CCL family and friends had a BBQ party to welcome the new semester! (08/26/2017)

• Welcome Ruijia Hu, Lauren Tebben, and Wenfei Tian join CCL as MS (Hu, Tebben) and PhD (Tian) graduate research assistants! (08/15/2017)

• Dr. Li delivered a one-day training course to the R&D team of WhiteWave Foods on plant protein foods in Denver. (08/09/2017)

• Dr. Li received a grant from Kansas Corn Commission on bioactive peptides development from distiller's grains. (07/01/2017)

• CCL team attended IFT2017 (June 20-28) in Las Vegas and presented two papers. (07/01/2017)

• Welcome Wei Wu and Yanting Shen join CCL as research interns! (06/01/2017)

• Dr. Li and Ruijia presented our program at the 2017 K-State Research Showcase at K-State Olathe campus on May 17, 2017 (click here for CCL program poster). (05/19/2017)

 

 

• Congratulations on Carrie's graduation from K-State and joining General Mills! Thanks for your great work at CCL for the past one and a half years. (05/13/2017)

• Dr. Li gave a presentation on sodium reduction strategies in wheat products and functional protein hydrolysates for the Grain Science Spring Seminar Series. (05/02/2017)

• Welcome Dr. Gengjun Chen join CCL as a postdoc! Welcome Ruijia Hu join CCL as a research intern! (01/2017)

• Congratulations to Carrie on receiving an OURCI (Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Inquiry, KSU) Research Award of $1000 (2nd time) for spring 2017. (12/2016)

• Dr. Li was invited to gave a talk at the 9th Annual Grain Science Graduate Student Symposium. The presentation is entitled "Grain Protein Based Natural Antioxidants". (10/15/2016)

• Carrie Carlson presented a poster at the 1st Annual KSU ACS Undergraduate Research Forum and won the Best Presentation Award. Her poster title is "Cereal Protein Hydrolysates as Functional Ingredients for Sugar Replacement in Sugar-Snap Cookies". Congratulations! (10/01/2016)

• New members welcome lunch! (09/27/2016)

• Dr. Li and Dr. Miller received a grant from PepsiCo to study sodium functionality in doughs. (09/15/2016)

• Welcome Gengjun Chen and Kristen Jensen to join CCL as research assistants. (09/14/2016)

• Welcome Jingjing Yi to join CCL. She's a visiting student from Jinan University (China) and will stay for five months. (09/09/2016)

• Shiwei Xu joins CCL as a Master student researcher, welcome! (08/12/2016)

• Welcome Chetan Sharma, a graduate student of Grain Science, to join CCL as a part-time research assistant. (05/16/2016)

• Dr. Li and Dr. Smith received a grant from J.M. Smucker on a project relative to grain sorghum. (05/15/2016)

• Congratulations to Carrie on receiving an OURCI (Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Inquiry, KSU) Research Award of $1000 for fall 2016. (05/03/2016)

• Welcome two new group members, Shiwei Xu and Carrie Carlson. (02/09/2016)

• Cereal Chemistry Laboratory (CCL) website is online. (02/09/2016)