Agnieszka Nawrocka

About her:

Dr Agnieszka Nawrocka is the supervisor of the Laboratory of Assessment of Grain and Oil Materials Quality and head of scientific task – “Determination of the effects of pro-health additives on the structure of gluten proteins, quality of bread dough and bread” in the Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lublin, Poland. She graduated in physics from Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, and obtained her PhD in physics from the same University (2008). She specialises in spectroscopy of biological molecules especially gluten proteins. Her main field of studies is the interactions between gluten proteins and dietary fibre preparations of different origin (cereals, fruits and vegetables) and particular components of the fibre preparation (water soluble and insoluble polysaccharides, anthocyanins and polyphenols). She uses mainly spectroscopic techniques such as UV-VIS spectroscopy, fluorescence and infrared and Raman spectroscopy in her studies. She also uses microscopic (scanning electron microscopy) and thermal (thermogravimetry, differential scanning calorimetry) techniques. Generally, she is interested in the applications of the spectroscopic methods for determination of food quality.

About her talk:

"Effect of dietary fibre moisturizing on the structure of gluten proteins in model dough"

The reduced quality of wheat bread supplemented with dietary fibre preparations is mainly connected with changes in gluten structure. The changes can be connected with the dehydration of gluten network and chemical interactions between gluten proteins and individual components of the dietary fibre preparations. The aim of the studies was to determine whether preliminary moisturizing of the fibre preparations can reduce or eliminate structural effects of the dehydration process.