On the 30^th of January 2026, Hokkaido University (HU) and its strategic international partner, the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMA), held a virtual symposium on Food Science. In the past two years, the two universities jointly organized symposia on Polymer Science and Engineering and Geopolitics.

UMA’s Department of Food Science was established in 1918 as the first of its kind in the United States. It is highly regarded for the quality of its research activities and has been ranked among the top programs in the country by multiple outlets.

During the symposium, Professor Tsuyoshi Setoguchi, Executive Vice President (Research) at HU, expressed expectations towards interdisciplinary research collaborations. Professor Lili He, Head of the Department of Food Science at UMA, emphasized UMA’s campus-wide initiative on the future of food, which aims to connect diverse expertise and promote regional food sectors.

The symposium comprised four themed sections and was moderated by Associate Professor Matthew Moore (UMA) and Taena Uemura (HU):

#1 Molecular Properties of Foods

• Pelvic suspension methods as venison tenderisation techniques (Professor Jun’ichi Wakamatsu, HU)
• Food emulsion technologies to reduce particle size to enhance stability, transparency, and bio-accessibility of nutrients (Distinguished Professor David Julian McClements, UMA)

#2 Foods for Health and Wellness

• LCMS lipid profiling in food sources and novel lipids and their potential applications in obesity control and disease prevention (Associate Professor Gowda, HU)
• Engineering food-microbiome interactions for human health, and the health benefits of fungi-fermented soy meal  (Professor Hang Xiao, UMA)

#3 Engineering for Future Foods

• Increasing vitamin E content in soybean varieties and their breeding (Assistant Professor Maria Dwiyanti, HU)
• Graphene transistor biosensors to detect COVID-19 and influenza viral proteins, nucleic acids, and mycotoxins (Assistant Professor Dmitry Kireev, UMA)

#4 The Safety of Foods

• NMR analysis of metabolomics in breast milk and faecal samples and allergens, and early diagnosis of protein malnutrition in the elderly (Professor Tomoyasu Aizawa, HU)
• Listeria monocytogenes development of resistance to benzalkonium chloride, and the use of microbial enzymes to reduce peanut allergenicity (Associate Professor John Gibbons, UMA)

The event received 75 attendees from all over the world, including attendees from Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Honduras, Ethiopia, Ghana, Zambia, Egypt, South Africa, Italy, Lithuania, Turkey, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia. In closing, Professor Kenji Monde from the Faculty of Advanced Life Science at HU emphasized the strong potential for further collaborative exploration in this field between the two universities.

(Office for International Collaborations, HU)