Renato Amadò

Renato Amadò has been Full Professor for Food Chemistry at the Institute of Food Science and Nutrition at ETH Zurich since October 1990. He retired end of 2007.

He was born in Lucerne on August 9, 1942 and is a citizen of Bedigliora (TI). He studied at the faculty of natural science at the ETH Zurich (main focus: Biochemistry and Microbiology), and completed his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor H. Neukom at the Institute of Agricultural Chemistry in 1970. After a one year stay as a guest research fellow at the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry of the University of Uppsala, Sweden, he returned to the ETH, where he acted as a senior research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Food Science. He was elected Associate Professor in Agricultural and Food Chemistry on October 1, 1986 and appointed full Professor four years later. Beginning in October 2001, he also acted as Prorector for continuing education and doctoral studies.

The main research activities of Renato Amadò's group: Studies on structural changes of pectic substances in plant cell walls during ripening, and on the influence of treatments on the physicochemical and physiological properties of dietary fibre. Within the field of dietary fibre research, in vitro methods, mimicking the digestion events in the human gastro-intestinal tract, were used to establish the relationship between chemical structure and physiological effects. The wide spectrum of the activities of his group was completed by research in the field of "Acrylamide in Food" (in cooperation with the Laboratory of Food Technology) and in the field of aroma compounds in wine.

Among other activities he chaired the Swiss Society for Food- and Environmental Chemistry and was member of the Consulting Committee for the Official Swiss Food Analysis Manual.