NEW TEAM: Nanobiomaterials spiced with biomaterial science

Thursday, 18 February 2010 08:29

VTT's Nanobiomaterials team leader Markus Linder was nominated as research professor in the field of Functional Materials.

With his strong background in biochemistry and biophysics, the new professor will bring insight to biomimetics and bio-inspired materials research at VTT level.

Nano- and biomaterial research has a lot of potential in the field of sustainable products and production methods. In the beginning of the year 2010, nanobiomaterials team was strengthened by two senior scientists, chief research scientist Pirkko Forssell, senior research scientist Maija-Liisa Mattinen and a new team leader, senior research scientist Riitta Partanen.

The aim of the new team is to develop functional biomaterial structures for solid surfaces, colloids, encapsulation systems and composites. These are systems, which have applications in practically all fields of industry: the current projects are focusing on bio-based lubrication in machinery, encapsulation in stabilising health-promoting compounds for food, self-assembling surfaces for sensors in electronics and biochemical modifications for added value forestry products.

Pirkko Forssell’s background lies in physical chemistry. The main recent interest has been to elucidate whether any generic behaviour of biopolymers such as carbohydrates and proteins in regard with their processing performance and functionality can be obtained. More specifically the focus has been on plasticisation caused by water and polyols and its interplay with mass transfer of small compounds in the matrices build of biopolymer networks. The interfaces and surfaces are the new key players in the present research studies.

Maija-Liisa Mattinen (Docent, University of Helsinki) has strong background in the field of structural biology. She has been acitive in the fields of structural characterization of proteins and protein complexes as well as protein–ligand interactions and function of oxidative enzymes using various spectroscopic techniques as high resolution NMR, MALDI-TOF MS, FTIR, EPR etc. The focus has been especially on the action of laccases and tyrosinases towards milk proteins as caseins and β-lactoglobulin. Recently characterization and enzymatic modification of lignin and related biopolymers as suberin and lignans have gained much of her research interests.

Riitta Partanen has background in food technology. She has studied water-induced plasticisation of biopolymers and its consequence to stability of encapsulated lipids and volatiles in her thesis. Lately, she has focused on protein modification as a tool for structure creation and for stabilising foams and emulsions. Her current project relates with engineering of proteins at oil-water interface with the aim of controlling mass transfer and thus, promoting stability of lipids in emulsions.

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