Dan Cristian VODNAR

Dan Cristian VODNAR
Lecturer, PhD
Department of Food Science,
University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (UASVM), Romania

Dan Cristian VODNAR, 32 years old, is assistant Professor at University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj Napoca. His research experience started to be accumulated working as PhD student in the frame of the Doctoral Scholarship Grant No. BD-200 and as Postdoctoral researcher in the POSDRU Fellowship Project (grant. no. 3/03.01.2011). The research stays as PhD student for 6 months at Leibniz Institute fur Agrartechnik Bornim, ATB, Potsdam, Germany and as Erasmus student at University Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany are also significant for developing the research skills. The research work conducted so far shows that Dr. Dan Vodnar is able to conduct independent, novel, and high quality research. Dr. Dan Vodnar has been mostly involved within the fields of lactic acid fermentation, food science and technology, bioactive packaging using methods which are able to provide informations about strains metabolites into different conditions. The experience accumulated during the last years is mostly related to the study of the metabolic capacity of strains (e.g. Lactobacillus ssp. Rhizopus ssp. Bacillus ssp. and Bifidobacterium ssp.) to produce lactic acid form renewable feedstocks (Vodnar et al., 2010a) food wastes (Vodnar et al., 2010b) and crude glycerol (Vodnar et al.,2013), a topic which has a great impact worldwide due to lactic acid application in food, pharmaceutical, textile, chemical industries and as monomer in the production of biodegradable polymers (PLA) and to protect lactic bacteria using microencapsulation during harsh acid conditions of gastro intestinal juices (Vodnar et al., 2014; Vodnar et al., 2012, Vodnar et al., 2010). More precisely, the selection of strains with high lactic acid yield, the production of L (+) lactic acid in batch fermentation using lucerne green juice and barley hydrolysate as nutrients substitute, the ability of lactic bacteria to produce lactic acid on food waste substrates, the survivability of microencapsulated lactic bacteria during exposure to simulated gastro-intestinal conditions were the main topics of the studies. The methods used for the characterization of fermentation processes were chromatographically, spectroscopically and microbiologically. Basically, for metabolites production and substrate consumption HPLC and FTIR techniques were used and for bacterial viability during fermentation and exposure into microencapsulated form to simulated gastro-intestinal juices microscopically counting and pour plate techniques were used. The research activity conducted so far resulted in the publication of a total of twelve scientific articles in representative ISI journals in the field, among which eight were published as principal author and a PhD thesis entitle „Optimization of lactic acid fermentation induced by different types of microorganism on vegetal substrates”.

lactic acid fermentation, food science and technology, bioactive packaging