The School of Pharmacy Welcomes New Marie Curie Fellow

Authenticity issues of meat and meat products (Montowska M., Pospiech E., 2011).

Dr Magdalena Montowska joins Professor Dave Barrett’s Analytical Bioscience Research Group in the School of Pharmacy as an Intra-European Marie Curie Fellow.

The research objective of her two-year AUTHENTIMEAT project is to develop authentication of meat products using ambient surface mass spectrometry; including desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and plasma-assisted desorption/ionization (PADI) mass spectrometry. She will work in collaboration with Professors Morgan Alexander (Pharmacy) and Greg Tucker (Biosciences) as well as Professor Barrett.

In recent years, authentication of food products has been gaining in practical importance throughout the world. The quality of meat products is deteriorating and cases of unlawful adulteration of food products by manufacturers are increasing, with the sale of products incompatible with the label declaration being very common. Magdalena observed a growing interest in the possibility of authentication of meat products from both consumers and producers while she was working at Poland’s National Sanitary Inspection and at The Institute of Meat Technology.