dr. M (Melania) Casertano

Melania Casertano explores how microorganisms can be used as a smart tools to connect food, health and sustainability. She holds an MSc in Medical Biotecnhology and a PhD in Food Science, where she investigates psychobiotic and their influence on the microbiota-gut brain axis. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Food Quality and Design (FQD) group at Wageningen University, focusing on sustainable strategies to upcycle food by-products into value-added functional ingredients, using fermentation as the key bioprocessing approach. Within her NWO research grant, she investigates how the genomic potential of edible filamentous fungi can be used to more rationally match fungal strains with specific food side streams, aiming to design smarter and more targeted sustainable fermentation processes