Team

Anwesha Sarkar ([email protected]) is Professor of Colloids and Surfaces at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the Director of Research and Innovation for the School of Food Science and Nutrition and also the Project Leader for the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) and Founder of a University of Leeds spinout MicroLub Ltd. Her international research trajectory spans from academic institutions to industries in India, New Zealand, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Prof. Sarkar received her BTech (Dairy Engineering) and MS (Food Technology) from India. Then she did PhD in Food Technology from Massey University, New Zealand (2010) in colloidal aspects of lipid digestion and worked for 4 years in Nestle Research (Lausanne) and Nestle Global Headquarters (Vevey) in Switzerland before joining University of Leeds. Prof. Sarkar is the PI of the prestigious ERC (European Research Council) Starting Grant funded Project LUBSAT (2017-22) to discover oral lubrication mechanisms and its effects on oro-sensory satiety, PI of ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) Project AQUALUB (2020-23) to develop salivary substitutes with optimal oral lubrication properties and ERC PoC (UKRI Horizon Guarantee Fund) Project MICROLUB to develop microgel-based fat replacers and texturants. She is the PI of the Innovate Uk Project SusProFood to develop sustainble fibre-rich rducts enriched with alterantive protein without losing textural performance. Recently, she has been funded with a multimillion pound grant from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Innovate UK to lead an Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) and 150+ industrial and research partners on alternative protein. She has also been the Theme Lead in the EPSRC-CDT (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-Centre for Doctoral Training) in 'Molecules to Product' (2019-27) and a key academic supervisor in EPSRC-CDT in 'Soft Matter for Formulation and Industrial Innovation' (2019-28). Prof. Sarkar was the Conference Chair of the 17th Food Colloids Conference (2018), the reputed biennial conference in the field of physical chemistry of complex foods at Leeds, UK and has served as Guest Editors for Advances in Colloid and Interface Science as well as Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects. She is the editorial board member of journals, Food Hydrocolloids, Food Hydrcolloids for Health, Tribology Letters, Food Structure, and Journal of Texture Studies.

Prof. Sarkar has been the recipient of the prestigious Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Reserach and Development Award 2024 and also the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) McBain Medal 2024. She was recognized by the Women of Achievement Award 2021 at the University of Leeds for her recent contributions to the field of colloid science and oral processing and also the winner of the prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Food Group Junior Medal 2019 as a result of her research in designing novel food structures with targeted oral lubrication performance. Previously she was awarded Elsevier Young Scientist Award (2009) and Nestle Discovery award (2011) for her scientific researches. To date, Prof. Sarkar has published +120 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is the co-inventor of 7 patents and and she is regularly invited for giving keynote lectures at national and international conferences in food, oral therapies and allied soft matter areas.

Research Support Technician in Alternative Protein Analysis [email protected] I am leading the alternative protein analysis in the School of Food Science and Nutrition, funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). I focus on colloidal and biophysical properties of alternative protein including their in vitro oral processing performance. I am interested to contribute to building the National Knowledgebase on alternative protein performnace.

PhD Student, School of Chemical and Process [email protected]
I am part of the CDT Molecules to Product funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). My research focuses on wax crystal-stabilised Pickering emulsions, where the wax is derived from a side-stream. My aim is to understand the organic crystal formation at the interface of a single droplet to decipher true stabilisation mechanism.

Research and Innovation Fellow, School of Food Science and Nutrition [email protected] I am a research and innovation fellow in Colloid Chemistry in the School of Food Science and Nutrition, funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). My research is focusing on finding and manipulating alternative proteins to have an emulsification ability comparable to more traditional animal protein-based emulsifiers, using both lab-based and computational approaches to achieve this.

PhD student, [email protected] I am a PhD student funded by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Soft Matter for Formulation and Industrial Innovation (SOFI2) and Reckitt Benckiser. My research focuses on understanding the mucoadhesive behaviour of microgels and their drug-release performance, considering different biomimetic environments using a combination of experimental and modelling approaches.

PhD student, School of Chemical and Process Engineering [email protected] am a part of the CDT Molecules to Product, which is funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). My PhD project foIcuses on understanding the physical phenomenon that regulates the demulsification of microgel-stabilized Pickering emulsions on demand to design next generation stimuli-responsive droplets for controlled release of active materials for food, pharmaceutical, personal care and allied soft matter applications.

Visiting PhD Student,[email protected]
I am a Visiting PhD student funded by the Commonwealth Split-Site PhD Fellowship (UK). During my visit at the University of Leeds, I will investigate strategies to enhance the oral performance of millet-derived fractions, specifically flour, protein, and starch, using rheology, tribology, and in vitro oral-processing simulations. Ultimately, my research will focus on unravelling structure-function relationship in millet protein.

NAPIC R&I Fellow, [email protected]
I am a research and innovation fellow in the School of Food Science and Nutrition, funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). I focus on understanding mouthfeel of alternative proteins and how to address mouthfeel challenges in alternative protein products using colloidal approaches. I combine tribology, rheology, adsorption tools, sensory approaches with more biological methods (e.g. cellular, neural tools) as well as data science approaches to gain deeper understanding of mechanoreception and textural perception.

PhD Student, [email protected]
I am a PhD student funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) at the University of Leeds. My research aims to understand how hydration and shear forces affect the structure and interfacial performance of plant proteins, using tools like Biofluidic Microscopy and X-ray scattering to improve their functionality as sustainable alternatives to animal proteins and synthetic emulsifiers in food systems.

PhD Student,
[email protected] I am a PhD student funded by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training for Formulation and Industrial Innovation (SOFI2 CDT). My PhD project in Leeds is in collaboration with Oatly to design sustainable plant-based microgels. This involves using a combination of experimental techniques and coarse grain modelling to determine structure-property relationships.

PhD student, School of Chemical and Process Engineering [email protected] I am part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Molecules to Product, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and based at the School of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Leeds. My PhD is about understanding and improving the functional and sensorial performance of single-cell proteins from microbial biomass as sustainable protein alternatives for use in vegan and functional foods.

NAPIC Research and Innovation (R&I) Fellow, School of Food Science and Nutrition [email protected] I am a research and innovation fellow in the School of Food Science and Nutrition, funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). I focus on the optimisation of in-vitro digestion models according to unique physicochemical and enzymatic properties of alternative protein. I am interested to understand the presence of anti-nutritional factors and effects of processing (e.g, enzymatic hydrolysis, extrusion, fermentation, and heat), structural modification and molecular properties on the digestibility of alternative proteins. I will also focus on unravelling the Interaction of alternative proteins with intestinal mucus and their subsequent absorption as well as on the co-digestion dynamics of alternative proteins in the presence of dietary fibre/ polymers.

Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Food Science and Nutrition [email protected] I am a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Food Science and Nutrition, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Prize. My research aims to characterize the three-dimensional protein distribution and protein identification on cell wall of Fusarium venenatum. I am focusing on understanding the protein localisation using a highly interdiciplinary approach combining superresolution microscopy, modelling and crystalographic approaches.

PhD Student [email protected] I am a PhD student funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) at the University of Leeds. My PhD project focuses on designing sustainable food foams stabilised by plant protein-polysaccharide complexes to improve mouthfeel and foam stability during oral processing. I will use advanced experimental techniques and mathematical models to understand the lubrication mechanisms and interactions of these foams with oral surfaces.

Research Support Technician in Alternative Protein Processing [email protected] I have joined the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) as a Research Support Technician in Alternative Protein Processing. I will support a variety of laboratory activities including extrusion and protein extraction, measurements and analysis. I have technical experience across the life sciences and analytical sciences, and I am looking forward to contributing to projects on alternative proteins.

Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Food Science and Nutrition [email protected] I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Food Science & Nutrition, funded by the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) Collaborative Programme Funding (CPF) Project ‘NutriOpt’, in partnership with MicroLub Ltd. The project aims to assess the feasibility of delivering micronutrients using proprietary NutriLub technology and check its performance across a wide range of alternative protein sources. I will investigate the multiscale structural behaviour to understand the molecular mechanism behind nutrient delivery to allow delivery of multiple nutrients.

PhD Student,
[email protected]
My PhD research funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Collaborative Training Partnership (BBSRC-CTP) and Mondelez focuses on how the material properties of both insoluble and partially soluble particles affect the oral processing behavior of fat-based products, particularly chocolate. Using a wide range of cutting-edge analytical approaches, I investigate the behavior of particles and their interactions at the interface where the oil phase meets saliva, contributing to a multiphase complex fluid. I also explore how these behaviors translate into sensory perception in the context of oral processing time.

PhD Student,
[email protected]
My PhD research focuses on the structure–function relationships of foam-based food systems, particularly how foams stabilised by natural biomolecules and how they behave under tribology-relevant conditions. By combining structural and compositional characterisation with in vitro tribological measurements, my work aims to better understand the mechanisms governing stability and lubrication performance biofoams to bring new foaming agents to food systems.

Postdoctoral Fellow, [email protected]
I am a Marie Curie/ EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sarkar Lab. I obtained my PhD from Wageningen University in the Netherlands followed by working at Planted Foods in Switzerland as a protein specialist. In my postdoctoral project, I will investigate how conventional and novel protein extraction methods influence protein properties and their sensory perception using a suite of analytical and in vitro methods. I will also develop a Machine learning model to capture the links between processing, material properties and sensory performance.

PhD Student,
[email protected]
I am a PhD student funded by Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). My research focuses on designing novel Pickering water-in-water emulsions using biocompatible microgels with an aim to emulate the outstanding lubrication performance of nature-engineered lubricants to address mucosal dryness. I want to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms of the lubrication performance.

PhD Student,
[email protected]
My PhD project will focus on understanding the techno-functional performance of plant-based proteins post enzymatic modification, specifically interfacial and lubrication properties of plant protein hydrolysates. This project will create new findings to address techno-functional challenges and plant protein astringency perceived in the mouth.

PhD Student,
[email protected]
My PhD research focuses on using novel techniques to improve the nutritional and techno-functional properties of plant proteins, specifically legume proteins. I am particularly interested in extraction processes of plant proteins that tend to influence structure and consequently performance of legume proteins.