The American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) has selected Utah State University professor Silvana Martini as the 2024 recipient of the Orton E. Bailey Award. The award recognizes her outstanding research contributions and outstanding achievements in fields related to fats, lipids, and oils, and includes a $750 honorarium and the opportunity to deliver the award presentation at the 2024 AOCS Annual Meeting. You can
Martini, who is currently in USU's Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Sciences and is the director of the Aggie Chocolate Factory, discovered his passion for chemistry as a high school student in Argentina. She decided to pursue her bachelor's degree in biochemistry at the University of La Plata, and in the final year of her degree she took a course in food science.
“I really liked it from the beginning,” Martini said. “So I asked my professor if I could volunteer in her lab, and she agreed. I decided to stay and get my Ph.D.
The focus of Martini's doctoral research was sunflower oil, Argentina's main cooking oil at the time. One of the problems with sunflower oil is the wax that is extracted with sunflower oil, which creates a cloudiness that consumers dislike. Martini sought to better understand how wax crystallizes in sunflower oil and be able to detect it, even in small amounts. She also works on crystallizing edible fats more generally, and since coming to Utah, she has begun researching how high-intensity ultrasound can be used to induce that process. Ta.
Fat crystallization is a process that is unfamiliar to many people, but it plays a vital role in giving structure to the foods we eat. The fat found in coconut cream may be delicious, but it's not compatible with the fat used to make biscuits. And if food doesn't have the consistency consumers expect, it usually doesn't sell. Martini explains that partially hydrogenated oils, or trans fats, were once a popular solution for creating fats customized to specific food needs, but they don't hold up over time. Did.
“Trans fats were great,” Martini said. “They could be made very cheaply, and we could engineer very hard fats to use in chocolate, or softer fats to use in cakes. But the problem is that people are trans It's about studying fats in terms of their nutritional properties and discovering that they're not very good for us.”
The United States ended the sale of foods containing trans fats in 2015, and nutritionists generally recommend diets low in saturated fat. Martini explained that most of it will leave behind liquid oil, which may be good for frying and salads, but not very useful for anything else. But food scientists continue to try to find healthy ways to get around this problem, and Martini is already pursuing one in the form of an unusual technology: high-intensity ultrasound.
“When you apply ultrasound to fats that have low levels of saturated fat, you get something that has more structure and is a little harder,” Martini said. “This allows us to use it for a variety of food applications. We've been doing this for the past 15 years or so and have received significant grants to keep us going.”
The basic research conducted in Martini's lab aims to make fundamental discoveries that can later be applied to the food industry, so it could be years before the benefits of her research are realized in practice. . However, things look promising. Martini has previously consulted with a Belgian company that aims to build a machine that uses high-intensity ultrasound to temper chocolate faster, and will train students from around the world to use high-intensity ultrasound. We continue to gather at USU for this purpose.
Martini also creates and teaches challenging introductory courses such as: Chocolate: Science, History, Society. When she's not developing new ways to create food, perfecting the Aggie Chocolate Factory's award-winning products, or teaching at USU, she writes for the Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society (JAOCS) I am the editor-in-chief. She served as president of the association from 2022 to 2023. Martini takes her responsibility for deciding what goes into the magazine seriously.
“I'm really honored,” Martini said. “JAOCS was the first journal I published in, and I have always considered it the best journal in my field. Only hard-core oleoscientists read our papers, so the content is limited. Although not widespread, the real impact of this magazine is that everyone in our field knows about JAOCS.”
Martini has been promoted through the journal ranks of reviewer, associate editor, senior associate editor, and editor-in-chief. She knows firsthand how dedicated the Journal's staff is.
“Everyone except the editor-in-chief is a volunteer,” she says. “It's great to lead a group of people like that because they love their jobs. They're all so busy that they end up writing their diary on weekends or after hours when the kids are asleep.” I really appreciate their efforts.”
Managing academic journals comes with pressure to publish research quickly and to constantly consider impact factors, or how many citations the average paper in a journal receives from other papers. But just as Martini's research focuses on larger questions in food science, JAOCS also prioritizes the best research above all else.
“We are determined to publish the best paper we can, regardless of what the metrics say,” Martini said. “We take the time to make sure our papers are of high quality, and we don't force reviewers to accept papers just to please publishers. And you can be a part of it. I'm happy about that. It's about teamwork and it's not just one person's job. Everyone is working toward the same goal.”
