By Prof. Dr. Mohamed Farag
Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Egypt
Editor In Chief Journal of Advanced Research, efoods
12th June, 2025 (12:30 PM, Pakistan Standard Time)
Abstract:
Metabolic Profiling and Metabolomics are unique tools in modern system biology that have been employed for fingerprinting and studying the overall chemical makeup of food products. Different analytical approaches are followed in non-targeted metabolomics (while targeted metabolomics is similar to classical analytics). These include “metabolic profiling” with an emphasis on classes of metabolites versus “metabolic fingerprinting” that refers to analysis of the total set of metabolites without knowledge of any components, avoiding biases against certain classes of compounds. Both metabolic approaches are used in the search for new biomarkers of quality and authenticity, and, certainly, contribute to the biochemical knowledge of foods and to the molecular understanding of bioactivities or changes in food-production processes. Detecting food components on a molecular level offers valuable insights into the complex relationships between its bioactive components and its nutritive and other effects, e.g. organoleptic, toxic, or health promoting properties. Metabolomics also is an indispensable tool to assess the authenticity of food. It helps to evaluate the molecular changes incurred as a results of food processing. In fact, metabolomics has been exploited to assess different topics involving food safety, food quality, as well as authenticity and traceability. This talk entitled “Recent trends and applications of metabolomics in food analysis, authentication, process monitoring and gut interactions” shall present on both qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques used to analyze food metabolites at a holistic level in relation to organoleptic, medicinal and nutritive determinants which is extensively reported in literature. Examples presented from Dr. Mohamed Farag research https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohamed_Farag6 shall include methodology contribution to metabolomics analysis in food matrix, effects of processing on food metabolome, metabolites and metabolic pathways that affect food flavor, and detection of food adulteration and quality identification.
Compared to extensive applications of metabolomics in food analysis, its role in assessment of interactions between the intestinal microbiota and different dietary components and impact on food outcomes is less well reported. In addition, most foods are complex matrices made up of a wide variety of different components such as water, lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and bioactive compounds (including flavonoids, phenolic acids, stilbenes, terpenoids, saponins, alkaloids, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, etc.). Such large structural diversity among phytonutrients confers a myriad of biological actions including the influence of different dietary components on gut homeostasis and or functions. The role of different dietary components on the regulation of gut microbiota or gut barrier as a mediator of human health using metabolomics shall also be presented using coffee and tea as model functional foods in food gut microbiota interactions based on his recent published work in Journal of Advanced Research and Food Chemistry.
Target Audience:
This webinar is open to academicians, scientists, and general public from all the member OIC states and beyond.
Profile of the Speaker:
Prof. Farag is a full professor at Cairo University, his home institute where he has established the first natural products metabolomics lab in Africa for applications in foods and functional foods and to publish a prolific number of papers in high quality journals with close to 10,000 citations for a total 360 publications. Specializing in metabolomics, natural products chemistry, and plant biochemistry, Mohamed A. Farag completed his PhD at Texas Tech University, USA, in 2003. In 2005, after spending time as a postdoctoral fellow at The Samuel Noble Foundation, USA, and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, USA, he became assistant professor in 2005 at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Egypt.
Since 2009, Dr Farag has been working as a part time visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, to participate in teaching plant metabolomics and chemomterics modelling for master students, and in 2009–2010 he held the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship at the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry, Germany. Dr. Farag now works full time as a professor at the Pharmacognosy Department within the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University where his research work focuses primarily around applying innovative biochemical technologies (metabolomics) to help answer complex biological questions in medicine, herbal drugs analysis and agriculture. Dr. Farag has also recently developed the first metabolomics platform for volatiles profiling in microbes along with colleagues in Louis Pasteur Institute pertaining bacterial volatiles role in plant protection, infection progression and microbial resistance.
Dr. Farag has been recognized with several awards, including UNESCO Award in life sciences 2023, Abd el Hameed Shoman award (2016), Egypt Higher State Incentive Award (2012), Cairo University Incentive Award (2009), TWAS award in science diplomacy (2014), and the Mass Spectroscopy Performance Award, TTU, USA (2004). For his highly cited publications with close to 20,000 citations and an H index of 64 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nWjY6yoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao, Dr. Farag was selected as a top researcher in the field of plant biology in Africa by the American society of plant biology, USA. Dr. Farag is a current TWAS fellow in Agriculture from Egypt.
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