Jesus Simal-Gandara Editor

José Manuel Lorenzo is Head of Research at the Meat Technology Centre of Galicia (CTC), Ourense, Spain. He received his M.S. in Food Science and Technology (University of Vigo). He obtained his Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology (University of Vigo) in 2006. He has started his scientific career in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Vigo, first as researcher scholarship, then, since April 2006, as academic Researcher. In 2006-2005 from October to March, he completed a stage period for his research project at the Stazione Sperimentale per L´Industria delle Conserve Alimentaria, (Parma, Italy). He has been the Principal Investigator of several projects of R&D and innovation related to meat science and food technology. He has developed numerous projects, many related to agro-industry and meat companies, and acquired extensive experience in the field of food technology. During this period, he completed analytic training in Liquid Chromatography (LC) and Gas Chromatography (GC), developing methods to quantify levels of lipid/protein oxidation, lipid fractionation by Solid phase Extraction (SPE) and vitamins with HPLC/FD/DAD and volatiles by GC/MS. These activities have focused on 1) Characterization of meat products from different species under different rearing conditions, such as pigs, poultry or horsemeat; 2) Extension of food shelf life using natural extracts with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity from agro-products; 3) Understanding physicochemical, biochemical and microbial changes during the technological processes applied to meat products; and 4) Development of new, healthier meat foods based on fat and salt reduction or improving lipid profile, replacement of fat, or incorporating functional compounds. Currently, he is involved in identifying proteomic and biomarkers associated with pastiness in dry-cured ham and their consequences for meat quality, using proteomic 2-DE techniques for protein separation and subsequent identification and quantification applying HPLC/MS/MS.

As an outcome of his research experience, the main achievements and strengths are:

1. More than twenty years of continuous upgrading in research skills and leadership.

2. A strong capacity for teamwork, and a growing collection of fruitful national and international collaborations.

3. The development of an independent, usually hypothesis-driven philosophy, to address complex problems that require systematic approximations and multidisciplinary approaches.

4. Five hundred twenty-four research papers in well-recognized peer-reviewed international journals (SCI), with 60% of them in the first quartile (number of publications in Q1 is higher than 310), and 245 communications to congresses, mostly international. His h-index is 49 with a number of cites of 9088 in Scopus. He was principal researcher in three European projects, three national projects, thirty-eight in regional projects (Galicia, NW Spain) and he was lead investigator in twenty-five-project development with meat enterprises and industry. In addition, he has participated in more than 65 projects as research collaborator. He has written 20 international books as editor and other one as national book as editor, and he has written 64 and 8 chapters of international and national books, respectively. In addition, he has got one national patent as inventor and 295 communications at congress. Finally, he has supervised five doctoral theses.

Jesus Simal-Gandara is Professor in Nutrition and Food Science at the Faculty of Food Science and Technology, University of Vigo (Spain). He was 1st Spanish Award of Completion of Pharmacy and PhD Prize at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). He also was Associate Professor in 1991 at the University of Vigo, where he is Full Professor since 1999.

He was recognized as Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Medicine and Surgery of the District of Galicia (1991), Member of the Scientific Committee of AECOSAN - Spanish Agency for Consumption, Food Safety and Nutrition (2013-2106), Research Medal of the Royal Galician Academy of Sciences 2020 Antonio Casares Rodríguez (Chemistry and Geology), President of the IADNS - International Association of Dietary Nutrition and Safety (2020), Full Member of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Galicia (2021), and is Associate Editor in the international scientific journals of Food Science and Nutrition (Wiley) and in Food Chemistry (Elsevier).

He now leads a research group of excellence at NW Spain. In addition, he was leading CIA3 (Environmental, Agricultural and Food Research Center) formed by 10 research groups from different fields (botany, plant physiology, soil science and agricultural chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, nutrition and food science, biotechnology, food technology, food rheology, chemical engineering, and colloidal chemistry) since 2008 till 2018, and also was the Head of the Department of Analytical Chemistry and Food Science at the University of Vigo between 2013 and 2018. He was also Vice-Chancellor for Internationalization at the University of Vigo in 2018. He was nominated by Clarivate Analytics as Highly-Cited Research in 2018 and 2020. This list recognizes world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.

He performed research stays at the Université de Paris-Sud (Paris, France), University of Delaware (Newark, USA), Fraunhofer-Institut für Lebensmitteltechnologie und Verpackung (Munich, Germany), Central Science Laboratory (Norwich and York, UK), TNO-Voeding (Zeist, Netherlands), Packaging Industries Research Association (Leatherhead, UK) and The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (Gothenburg, Sweden). He is editor of 5 national books and 1 international book. He published book chapters in 10 national and 15 international books. He directed 18 doctoral theses and participated in lots of competitive research projects, of which he was principal investigator at 25. He has 15800 citations in 520 papers = 30 per paper; h-index = 66 (http://scholar.google.es/citations?user=rmeHFXIAAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao).

His research group is specialized in chromatographic separations (GC-MS and LC-MS) and molecular biology and proteomics. He investigates the distribution of agricultural and environmental organic chemical contaminants in the food production chain, and how improving the sensory and functional quality of food, with an eye on the food chain globally, integrating environment, agriculture and food with nutrition and public health issues. His focus today is on the study of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from the point of view of public health (epidemiology, toxicity of mixtures, metabolites ...), and on the study of secondary metabolites in plant foods, exploring the molecular mechanisms that explain their activity.