Alessia Delbrück

The contamination of food with spoilage or safety relevant microorganisms is a major concern for the food industry. While spoilage organisms may lead to food waste, pathogenic organisms additionally pose a severe health risk for the consumer. It is therefore crucial to control these microorganisms. While most of them are easily controlled with chemical, biological or physical approaches, bacterial spores show extreme resistance towards classical preservation methods.  To control bacterial spores, intensive heat treatment is commonly applied in the food industry. However, the use of thermal processing has a severe effect on the nutritional and sensorial quality of food. The scientific community is therefore searching for alternative ways to ensure bacterial spore control. High-pressure induced spore germination followed by mild inactivation procedures is being investigated as a promising non-thermal alternative with higher nutrient retention. However, the application of this strategy is limited since so far no treatments were reported to trigger the germination of all spores. There is a subpopulation of spores, referred to as high pressure superdormant spores, which do not germinate under defined high pressure treatments.

In her doctoral studies, Alessia aims to contribute to a better understanding of this superdormant spore population in order to develop effective and mild control strategies for bacterial spores.

Born in 1991 in Basel, Switzerland, Alessia obtained her BSc and MSc degree in Food Science from ETH Zürich with an exchange semester at the University of Copenhagen. She conducted her Bachelor Thesis in the Laboratory of Food Microbiology and investigated synergistic effects of bacteriophage endolysins and other antimicrobial agents for effective control of Listeria under the supervision of Prof. Martin Loessner. For her Master Thesis she joined the Laboratory of Food Biotechnology of Prof. Christophe Lacroix and studied L. plantarum antifungal activity and its potential increase by yeast-derived factors supervised by Prof. Leo Meile. During her studies, Alessia conducted internships in the food industry at Danone Dairy in Munich, as a researcher on antibiotic resistant Enterobacteriaceae at the Kantonalem Laboratorium Basel-Stadt and as a lecturer of Food Science at Bern University of Applied Science.

Before joining Prof. Alexander Mathys and the Sustainable Food Processing Laboratory as a doctoral candidate in December 2018, she was working for 2 years in the food industry.