Maude Ducrocq: PhD at INRA on GreenProtein
Maude Ducqrocq is a Ph Doctoral Student at INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), which is also a Project Partner of the GreenProtein Project. She is doing her PhD study on wheat-based products enriched with RuBisCo; the vegetable protein that the GreenProtein Project produces.
Down below, the main question that her research study seeks to respond is:
What is the impact of RuBisCo enrichment on protein network and associated techno-functional properties?
Next, some of her insights and opinions about her research on GreenProtein:
About Maude Ducrocq and how she got to GreenProtein
I have been graduated from Montpellier SupAgro Agricultural Engineering School in the field of food science. More precisely, I specialized in research and development, health and nutrition. Although I have an engineering degree, research activities stimulate my curiosity. Therefore, I decided to do my Master thesis at INRA (National Institute of Agricultural research) and continue with a PhD.
Her opinion about GreenProtein
GreenProtein project aims at revalorise industrial green wastes into high added value ingredients, intended to human consumption. To my opinion, the originality of this project is to associate the topic of agro-industrial waste valorisation and the issue of protein origin and availability in Europe.
Nowadays, sustainable transformation of agricultural resources is necessary, and it concerns multiple issues: economic, environmental, societal… There are many levers for action that can be explored and GreenProtein is one example of them.
Her research: GreenProtein in and outs
One of GreenProtein axes is the extraction of a plant protein named RuBisCo and the study of its functionality in food matrices. This is a study with applications in different areas. For example, enrichment of cereal-based food with RuBisCo is of particular interest for nutritionally enhanced food. This is because, in addition to being protein-rich, RuBisCo enriched cereal based-food has a balanced amino acid profile owing to the complementarity of RuBisCo and wheat proteins.
Nevertheless, food enrichment often leads to lower technological and organoleptic qualities due to formulation modification. Usually, these changes are mostly caused by wheat protein network modification induced by new interactions and wheat protein dilution by the foreign protein.
However, intrinsic characteristics of RuBisCo suggest that it could avoid major modification of gluten network.
The purpose of the research: the impact of RuBisCo addition on wheat-based food
The purpose of this PhD is to study the impact of RuBisCo addition on wheat-based food quality. More precisely, it consists of a study of the interactions between RuBisCo and wheat protein and their links with final product quality but also with RuBisCo intrinsic characteristics. The study will:
- First, study the protein network development and proteins interactions on a wheat-based food model system.
- Then, the study will address the technological and nutritional quality of RuBisCo in real food.
Contact info
If you are interested to know more about her research check her poster in our Dissemination Materials Section or contact her at maude.ducrocq@inra.fr
You can also contact the PhD supervisors:
- Valérie Micard (director); valerie.micard@supagro.fr
- Adeline Boire (Co-director); adeline.boire@inra.fr
- Marc Anton (co-supervisor); marc.anton@inra.fr
- Marie-Hélène Morel (co-supervisor); marie-helene.morel@inra.fr
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