Barry McCleary

Barry McCleary


About him:

Professor Barry V. McCleary is founder, owner and CEO of Megazyme. He received his PhD and DSc degrees from the University of Sydney, at which he is an Adjunct Professor. His interests span enzymes and carbohydrates and how they interact in defining quality aspects and the processing of plant products including grain, fruits and biomass. Several methods developed by Barry have been adopted as international standards, including those for b-glucan, starch, resistant starch, starch damage, dietary fibre (AOAC Methods 2009.01, 2011.25 & 2017.16; ICC Method 185), fructan (AOAC Method 999.03 & 2018.07) and a-amylase. Dr McCleary has received several awards for his contributions to analytical chemistry including the Harvey Wiley Medal from AOAC International, the Clive Bailey Medal from ICC, the Phil Williams Applied Research Medal from AACC International, and the Guthrie Medal from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Megazyme has won numerous innovation and business awards including Australian Small business of the year in 1993 and the Irish Small Business of the year in 2013. Professor McCleary received the highly prestigious International Achievement award from the University of Sydney in 2014. For his contributions to local and international Justice Programs, he was named Person of the Year in his hometown of Greystones in 2017 and was awarded the Melvin Jones Fellowship for Humanitarian Service by Lions International in 2018. Professor McCleary, his team of 30 scientists and his company, Megazyme, are committed to the development of improved analytical methodology to assist in the production of plant based food products.


About his talk:

"Automation of endo-Hydrolase Measurement in Grain and Malt Samples Using Defined Colorimetric Substrates."


Defined colorimetric, oligosaccharides have been developed for the assay of a range of enzymes relevant to the processing of cereals. These enzymes include a-amylase, b-amylase, limit-dextrinase, b-glucanase, cellulase and b-xylanase. Utilization of these substrates in automated assays for the specific enzymes will be described and discussed.