(Blacksburg, Va.) Virginia Tech chemists are using the oxidation process to create polymers from fats. Virginia Tech food scientists try to block or slow oxidation to prevent foods from spoiling. Researchers in human nutrition, foods, and exercise, and veterinary medicine are interested in how oxidative stress is related to obesity and Type II diabetes in animals and humans. These scientists are not working independently. They have been collaborating for four years in a program they call Macromolecular Interfaces with Life Sciences (MILES).

"The scientific scope is broad, crossing traditional boundaries of science from the oxidation of fats to understanding disease mechanisms," says chemistry professor Tim Long. "We focus a wide range of expertise on the study of free radical and oxidative processes."

Susan Duncan, associate professor of food science and technology, Long, and Craig Thatcher, large animal clinical sciences professor and department head in the VirginiaMaryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, and their students have been collaborating in order to determine the biochemical pathways of the oxidation process and how the process can be used to protect food and health and create new technologies. The chemistry-biology collaboration offers the potential for the development of antioxidant delivery systems, including antioxidant-enriched foods, novel biocompatible synthetic polymer delivery systems, and new natural and synthetic macromolecular antioxidants.

"We are interested in the oxidation of triglycerides, such as soybean oil, and evaluating the potential of the products of that oxidation for high performance polymers," says Long. "This really gives us an opportunity to develop technologies that are not petroleum based."

Food science graduate student Heather Woodson is determining which light waves cause oxidation in such packaged foods as milk, and student Janet Webster is evaluating polymer systems that will bloc
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Contact: Susan Trulove
strulove@vt.edu
540-231-5646
Virginia Tech
19-Feb-2004

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