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This News section has been discontinued. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for our latest news!

2020

  • Our BARBARA project is about to reach an end. And we just got our paper on “Organocatalytic esterification of corn starches” accepted in Green Chemistry! Read here how to modify starch for the incorporation in bioplastic blends for 3D printing. Congrats to Balazs!

  • Combining glycomics and molecular dynamics simulations we have studied the ‘Influence of the molecular motifs of mannan and xylan populations on their recalcitrance and organization in spruce softwoods’ - now published in Green Chemistry. Congrats to Amparo and Toni for their fantastic work with the 'mass spec', and yet again another great collaboration with Jakob at the WWSC!

  • Our new paper on the cascade extraction of proteins and AX fibres from wheat bran is out at Food Chemistry. Congratulations to Secil for her first PhD paper!
  • Congratulations to Reskandi for her second paper on the Comparative recalcitrance to hydrothermal extraction between cereal brans in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering! 

  • Our research on the valorization of bioactive fractions from agricultural by-products using sustainable chemistry approaches is included in the IVA-100 list of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences! 

2019

  • December 2019. Farewell to Xiaoqi Xu who has stayed as a guest researcher in our group for the last 15 months. We will miss you! Best of luck back in China!

  • November 2019. Invited speaker at the Starch Round Table in Denver (CO). So nice to meet my  starch colleagues to discuss old and new fun starch research and the BARBARA project
  • October 2019. Invited lecture at the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPNOE) conference in Aveiro (Portugal)

  • September 2019. Representing the Association of Spanish Researchers in Sweden (ACES) at the reception by HM The King of Spain and the Acting Minister of Science and Innovation.

  • July 2019. Always a pleasure to come to Cambridge, this time to participate at the Plant Cell Wall meeting!
  • June 2019. And now, off to Cordoba with Amparo for the 2nd International Workshop on Biorefinery of Lignocellulosic Materials (IWBLCM2019)
  • June 2019. BIOPOL-2019 in Stockholm! In the end, 2 years of intense work preparing the International conference on Bio-based Polymers. So many unforgettable moments, reuniting with my 2 PhD supervisors, receiving all the guests in Stockholm, the recpetion at the Town Hall and the conference dinner at the VAsa Museum. Thanks to the amazing team at KTH for the assistance during the conference, it would have been impossible without you!

  • June 2019. Saina Kishani defended her thesis at the WWSC on hemicellulose solubility. Congratulations to Saina for her great job, a pleasure to be a co-supervisor!
  • June 2019. Congratulations to Caro for the publication of her work on Antioxidant starch films containing sunflower hull extracts in Carbohydrate Polymers. Towards new active films for food packaging! 
  • May 2019. So glad to be back 'home' in my town (Muro) presenting to the kids in my former school 'El Bracal' what it means to be a scientist. Thanks to Inma and Soraya for giving me the opportunity to share these fun moments with the next generation. Such a great job that you are doing!

  • April 2019. Delighted to be in Cambridge for the external examiner of the PdD thesis of Lisa M. Steiner, from Silvia Vignolini's group. Congratulations for a great work on the amazing functionalities of hemicelluloses/celluloses in tuning structural colour in plants.

  • April 2019. Co-organized the ACS symposium on the "Interplay of Cellulose & Other Biopolymers in Biological & Designed Materials Systems" in Orlando.
  • March 2019. Welcome to Emilia Heinonen as a new PhD student within the new round of the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre. Looking forward to new wood hemicellulose challenges!
  • February 2019. Our paper on the integral valorization of rice husk into bioactive xylan, cellulose nanocrystals and silica particles is published at ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Congratulations to Raquel for her great job in just 4 months as a part of her research stage, and such a nice collaboration with my Alma Mater at Universitat Politécnica de Valencia and Prof. Amparo Chiralt's group.

  • February 2019.  Jennie Berglund defended successfully her PhD thesis "Wood Hemicelluloses - Fundamental Insights on Biological and Technical Properties". Congratulations for a fantastic collaboration, it has been such a pleasure to be a co-supervisor!
  • January 2019. Welcome Dr. Mamen Casado as a new postdoc in our group!

2018

  • December 2018. Congrats to Balazs and the co-authors from our BARBARA project for the publication of our review on the 'Reactive compatibilization of plant polysaccharides and biobased polymers" on Carbohydrate Polymers. Feel free to download and read our open-access publication here. Go biopolymers! 

  • September 2018. Welcome Dr. Stefan Gaunitz as a new postdoc in our group!
  • August 2018. So honored and happy to be part of a fantastic ACS symposium in Boston on 'Glycan structure and function', invited by these two pioneers of carbohydrate analysis Profs. Cathy Costello and Isabelle Compagnon.

  • July 2018. We're recruiting! Postdoctoral scholarship available on dietary fibres and gels from cereal byproducts. If you are interested, you can apply following this link.
  • June 2018. Francisco presented at the WWSC 10-year final workshop, summarizing the work on hemicellulose structure, interactions and properties. Looking forward to the next phase of the WWSC!

  • June 2018. Our group participated in the Chemistry day organized by the Department of Chemistry at KTH. Big thanks to the organizers for the activities during the whole day!

  • May 2018. Fantastic M12 meeting for our Barbara project here at KTH! So nice to host all our partners in Stockholm with full summer weather!

  • April 2018. We're recruiting! We're offering a postdoctoral scholarship in the framework of the WWSC to investigate the molecular structure of wood hemicelluloses using MS-based glycomics. We're looking for a recently graduated PhD with a bioanalytical backgound and who is motivated to join our team and develop mass spectrometric methods for polysaccharide analysis. 

Check the information on how to apply in this link

  • April 2018. Check our latest paper on the enzymatic degradation of acetylated mannans published in Biotechnology for Biofuels, in collaboration with the group of Lisbeth Olsson (Industrial Biotechnology at Chalmers) and within the framework of the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre.
  • April 2018. We are organizing the Treesearch and WWSC Symposium on 'Hemicelluloses: Molecular Structure, Interactions in Woody Tissues and Material Systems". 

2017

  • November 2017. We're on the news! Check our latest published paper on the molecular structure of spruce xylan and the implications on interactions with cellulose and on the overall wood assembly. This work has been performed in the framework of the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre. Congratulations to Toni, Jennie and the rest of colleagues at the WWSC!

Viktig beståndsdel i trä kartlagd

  • October 2017. Check out the outreach video for our EU project FUNGUSCHAIN on the cascade valorization of the biomolecules in mushroom by-products for high added value applications.

 

  • September 2017. Francisco presented at the workshop in Bioeconomy as a part of the National PhD program in Applied and Environmental Microbiology at the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal). Thanks to Margarida Casal and her team for the hospitality and the wonderful time in Braga!

  • September 2017. The Spanish gang from KTH Biotechnology with future Nobel prize winner and the discoverer of CRISPR Francis Mojica at the 3rd Workshop of the Association of Spanish Researchers in Sweden (ACES).

  • September 2017. Amparo, Balázs, Caro and Francisco attended and presented at the BIOPOL-2017 conference in Mons (Belgium). Welcome to Stockholm for the next edition of BIOPOL-2019! Stay tuned for further information.

  • September 2017. Welcome to Secil Yilmaz Turan as a new PhD student in the group!
  • June 2017. New publication on Cell Metabolism on the effect of lack of glycogenin on glycogen structure and muscle function impairment with our colleages at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Canada).
  • May 2017. Francisco presented as invited speaker in the 2017 HYBER Symposium "Molecular Engineering of Biosynthetic Hybrid Materials" organized by Aalto University in Helsinki (Finland). The talk was focused on "Molecular Heterogeneity in Hemicelluloses: Impact on Lignocellulose Assembly, Recalcitrance and Material Design". Thanks Orlando Rojas and the rest of the HYBER team for the kind invitation and the great hospitality!
  • May 2017. Balázs and Francisco participated in the Kick-off Meeting of the EU project BARBARA in Zaragoza (Spain). The project is funded by the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking and Horizon 2020 and aims at the development of biopolymers with advanced functionalities for engineering applications. Thanks AITIIP for the hospitality during these days!

Press release: Biobased engineering materials for automotive and construction

  • April 2017. Check our YouTube video on the valorization of wheat bran!

 

Press release: Antioxidants and plastics could be made from byproducts of wheat milling

Förvandlar djurmat till människoföda (in Swedish)

  • April 2017. Tutorial on "Mass spectrometry of glycans" during the symposium "Frontiers in Glycoanalytics" at the 253rd American Chemical Society (ACS) Annual Meeting in San Francisco (CA). Thanks to the Division of Cellulose and Renewable Materials for the invitation!

  • February 2017. Welcome to Balázs Imre as new Postdoctoral scholar!

  • January 2017. Kick-off meeting at KTH for the Formas project "Biobased Multifunctional Materials and Additives from Cereal Byproducts".

  • January 2017. Welcome to Ellinor Johnsson and Reskandi Chastelia Rudjito as new Master Thesis students!

  • January 2017. Welcome to Amparo Jiménez-Quero as new Postdoctoral scholar!

  • January 2017. Caro and Francisco visited the Institute of Food Engineering for Development at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain), as a start of Caro's 2-year stage in Valencia. Many thanks to Prof. Amparo Chiralt, Prof. Chelo González, and the rest of the group for such a warm welcome. It will be the start of a great collaboration!

2016

  • December 2016. Francisco visited the Group of Polymer Analysis and Nanomaterials at the University of Alicante as guest researcher. The visit strengthened the links in our current collaborations (FUNGUSCHAIN project) and paved the way for new and fun collaborations. Thanks to Alfonso Jiménez, M. Carmen Garrigós and the rest of the UA team for such a great stay! 

  • November 2016. Kick-off meeting for the Horizon 2020/BBI project FUNGUSCHAIN in Amsterdam

  • September 2016. Invited talk at the Food in Focus seminar series. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala.

  • June 2016. Presentation on the structural heterogeneity of wood hemicelluloses at the EWLP in Autrans (France) after a full afternoon of alpine hiking!

  • June 2016. New Formas project on Forestry and Biomass Raw Materials granted!

  • May 2016. Presentation at the 13th International Hydrocolloids Conference in Guelph (Canada).

Profile picture of Francisco Javier Vilaplana Domingo