María José Benito

Dr María José Benito Bernáldez holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine and a PhD from the University of Extremadura. She is currently Full Professor at the University in the area of Nutrition and Bromatology. She has 4 quinquenios and 4 sexenios of research. Researcher in the Food Quality and Safety Area of the University Institute for Research in AgriFood Resources (INURA) of the UEX. Expert in food quality control, functional foods and ingredients, authenticity, microbiology, shelf-life extension. Co-author of more than 90 publications. H index (H ind.) 30, Orcid iD: 0000-0001-8432-8035 Scopus Author ID: 35315298600. Participates in 89 research projects (regioanal, national and european such as MORE ON THE ADOPTION OF A HEALTHY MEDITERRANEAN DIET. PRIMA European. (01/06/2023 - 31/05/2026)), 50 of which are projects with companies.

In 1999 she defended her dissertation and at the beginning of this year he obtained the FPI grant from the MEC for the completion of his doctoral thesis. From this point on, he began to develop his research lines with a priority line of studies on the effect of proteolytic enzymes on the quality of meat products. Obtaining a highly proteolytic enzyme from moulds from the maturation of these products and adding it to meat products to improve their quality. The proteolytic enzyme EPg222 was patented. These studies formed part of her doctoral thesis, which she completed in 2002 with an outstanding cum laude and was awarded the extraordinary doctoral prize.

The methodology and lines developed during her research cover the following fields: a) Quality control of agrifood products; b) Exploitation of by-products of the agri-food industry; c) Development and characterisation of functional foods; d) Detection, purification and identification of bioactive compounds, amino acids by HPLC coupled to different detectors (FLD, MS, Diode-array, etc.); e) Identification and characterisation of bioactive compounds, amino acids by HPLC coupled to different detectors (FLD, MS, Diode-array, etc.); f) Identification and characterisation of bioactive compounds, amino acids, etc.). ); e) Identification and characterisation of microorganisms by molecular techniques; f) Development of proteomic and metagenomic molecular tools for food; g) Genotypic and phenotypic study of foods of plant origin; h) Effect of proteolysis in different foods.

In addition, she has spent time in research centres to learn new techniques: Animal Science Dpt. Cornell University, New York, USA. Dr. Benito; Biotechnology Dpt. De Roche, Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Benito; University of Nottingham. Division of Food Science. School of Biosciences, Dr. Benito.

She has supervised a total of 10theses read and 2 in progress. All of them related to the subject of the project and with quality indexes that include the publication of the results in impact journals. Three theses related to the effects of proteolysis in food. Three theses related to probiotic microorganisms and microbiome and in addition, in two of them metagenomics studies were carried out, In addition, Two theses related to bioactive compounds from plants and by-products of plant origin,