Fanfen Song, a PhD student at the Research Unit VEG-i-TEC (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, UGent) under the supervision of Prof. Katleen Raes and Prof. Imca Sampers.

She is studying the sulfur compounds in Brassica vegetables.

Her research focuses on developing green technologies such as fermentation to release and capture the sulfur compounds from the side stream of those vegetables. Sulfur compounds, rich in Brassica vegetables, have many bioactivities such as antimicrobial, antioxidative, and anti-inflammatory effects, while some of those are reported to be anti-nutritive or goiter inducing which hampers the applications of these side streams. The aim of her PhD is to enrich and capture the bioactive sulfur compounds from Brassica side streams and enhance the application of the biomass. She is now screening suitable strains, and she will optimize fermentation conditions by adjusting factors such as pretreatment and temperature.

This project is funded by China scholarship council (CSC, No.202006790056).