Juan Ignacio Reguera-Useros

Reguera-Useros, Juan Ignacio

Hemeroteca Cientifica Catalana

EDITORIALJuan Ignacio Reguera-UserosComments on food science and technologyfrom a university department of microbiologyPublished online: 28 March 2002 Springer-Verlag and SEM 2002Food science and technology have acquired unforeseenimplications in diﬀerent ﬁelds, among which the follow-ing stand out: (1) industries related to agriculture, animalhusbandry, ﬁsheries, and transport; (2) hygiene, in orderto establish scientiﬁcally the appropriate types of foodprocessing along with a more rational approach todietetics; and (3) legislative, in order to enact laws pro-tecting consumers against fraud by developing adequateand uniform analytic methods. The most urgent tasks areachieving better food-preserving methods, ﬁghtingagents responsible for food spoilage – applying the samestrategies used to combat pathogenic ones – , ﬁnding newraw materials, and obtaining new kinds of food.Food science must provide answers to new socialdemands, pursuing four main objectives: (1) producingthe quantity of food necessary for a healthy diet for apopulation that is constantly increasing, which willcontribute to palliating famine throughout the devel-oping world; (2) increasing or at least maintaining thenutritional value of food in order to secure consumers’health; (3) extending the shelf-life of food products; and(4) producing tasty food and variety in the diet.Nowadays, consumers demand not only that foodcovers their nutritional needs, but that it be of goodquality, appropriately elaborated, eﬃciently stored andpreserved, uncontaminated, tasty and appetizing.Many years ago developed countries, particularly inEurope and North America, started to oﬀer universitydegrees in food science aimed at creating experts in thearea of food and its properties, including its production,transformation, control, analysis, preservation and rolein human nutrition. In these degree programs, microbi-ology, especially food microbiology and industrialmicrobiology, play a major role. In Spain, until 1990there had been no speciﬁc degree in food science, andgraduate studies on this subject were carried out in adisorganized and unconnected way in various universitycentres. The new degree in Food Science and Technol-ogy (FST) was established to provide adequate scientiﬁctraining in basic and applied aspects of food productionand processing. The degree in FST, currently availablein more than 20 Spanish universities, has ﬁlled a gap inSpanish university programs. In 1991, the University ofBurgos – at that time still associated with the Universityof Valladolid – was the ﬁrst to establish oﬃcially theFST degree in Spain. As in other developed countries,subjects such as microbiology, food microbiology, andindustrial microbiology, which are usually taught bymicrobiology departments, play a major role in thecurriculum of this degree.Just 10 years later, there are many Spanish centresoﬀering the FST degree. One may wonder whether thereason for this proliferation is scientiﬁc, industrial, orsocial. The establishment of a degree program in FSTshould take into consideration the professional per-spectives that it may oﬀer to graduate students, as wellas the needs of the industrial food and agriculture sec-tors. Potential professional opportunities in the labormarket in food science include those related to allaspects of the food industry, research, development andinnovation (R+D+I), teaching, food-companymanagement, the distribution sector, dietetics andnutrition, and food legislation. The introduction of thesestudies depends not only on the relationship betweenuniversities and companies in this sector, but also on theInt Microbiol (2002) 5: 1–2DOI 10.1007/s10123-002-0050-7Juan Ignacio Reguera-Useros is Associate Professor at the Uni-versity of Burgos (UBU) and head of the Microbiology Section,past Vice-dean of Food Science and Technology in the Faculty ofSciences of the UBU, member of the Board of the Spanish Societyfor Microbiology (SEM), member of the Board of the Associationof Food Scientists and Technologists of Castilla y Leo´n, member ofthe Health Board of the Autonomous Government of CastillaLeo´n, and member of the Board of Environment of the Autono-mous Government of Castilla y Leo´n. He does research on clinicalvirology and food microbiology (especially meat products).J.I. Reguera-UserosMicrobiology Section, Faculty of Sciences,University of Burgos, Pza Misael Ban˜uelos s/n,09001 Burgos, SpainE-mail: jiru@ubu.esTel.: +34-947258812Fax: +34-947258831development of research – especially applied research –in the university departments involved. Moreover, thebeneﬁts obtained from applied research, will allow uni-versities to develop basic research programs, which willultimately beneﬁt both applied research and furtheruniversity education, especially postgraduate studies. Inaddition, the practical work that students undertake infood and agriculture companies will help them to be-come acquainted with the labor market that they willenter after having taken their degrees. There is no magicrecipe to gain the involvement of industrialists, profes-sionals and social agents in this scientiﬁc sponsorshiptask, which, moreover, presents diﬃculties such as ex-cessive bureaucracy, the need for self-management, andthe lack of interest in training students. To make sci-entiﬁc projects attractive, the government should oﬀertax advantages to sponsors, while collaboration with theuniversities would aid in supporting and increasing suchsponsorships.Microbiology is one of the life sciences that haveevolved the most over the last several decades. Many ofthe Nobel Prizes awarded in science were, at least inpart, in recognition of research on microorganisms. Thiscontinuing interest has led to the development of dif-ferent microbiological specialties that diversify and en-rich microbiology without it losing its unitary character.Food microbiology stands out due to economic andsocial reasons, along with important scientiﬁc break-throughs in this ﬁeld. It is related to other specialtiessuch as industrial microbiology, regarding food pro-duction, and clinical microbiology, which deals withfood hygienic-sanitary aspects.Departments of microbiology in the ﬁeld of foodsciences should not conﬁne themselves exclusively to theFST degree. Even though this is the most speciﬁc degree,other degree programs also linked to the topic of food,such as general microbiology, food and agriculturalmicrobiology, enology, and industrial microbiology,should be established.The eﬀort of universities to strengthen their micro-biology departments should be carried out in collabo-ration both with companies and with public and privateorganizations. This task has been successfully carriedout by the Spanish Society for Microbiology (SEM)through its Food Microbiology group. The oﬃcialjournal of the SEM – International Microbiology –contributes to this task in a remarkable way, as does theSEM newsletter, Actualidad SEM. Lastly, dear reader, Iask for your collaboration in spreading and promotingmicrobiology through the SEM and its publications. Bydoing so, you will contribute to the development ofmicrobiology in and out of Spain and Latin America.2

Comments on food science and technology from a university department of microbiology

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Comments on food science and technology from a university department of microbiology

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