Food Safety

Biography

Kirsten Brandt is Senior Lecturer of Food Science and Nutrition in the Food Quality and Health Research Group of the Human Nutrition Research Centre at Newcastle University. The research group has an established track record in human intervention trials and risk-benefit assessments with foods and food supplements, benefitting from excellent access to highly motivated volunteers, healthy or belonging to relevant at-risk groups, and to recently established purpose-built facilities. It carries out investigational studies for public bodies such as the Department of Health as well as trials of a wide range of different health-related effects of foods and food supplements for large and small companies. Dr Brandt’s research focuses on food quality and impact on human health, including assessing health-promoting properties of plant constituents previously considered harmful for human health, including secondary metabolites and nitrate, as well as understanding of the effect of production factors on plant product composition. She teaches on the BSc honours degree programme ‘Food and Human Nutrition’ and the MSc degree programme ‘Medicinal Plants and Functional Foods’.

Research Interest

food quality, health of humans and animals, multidisciplinary approaches, food safety, agricultural methods and plant chemistry.