Saji George
Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Nanotechnology for Food and Agriculture, Associate Professor
Dr Saji George is an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry at Â鶹´«Ã½ÍøÕ¾ and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Nanotechnology for Food and Agriculture. His current research is aimed at understanding the relationship between nanomaterial properties and their hazardous and beneficial biological outcomes, with the ultimate goal of developing sustainable nanotechnology applications for challenges in food safety and security. He has authored >90 peer-reviewed articles, five patents and >75 invited talks. He has been serving as a reviewer and editorial board member for many leading journals in the field of nano-biotechnology. His excellence in teaching and research has been recognized by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, through the best mentor award and PS21 ExCEL Gold/Silver Awards in 2015 and 2016, Canada Research Chair (Tier 2), and visiting professorship at IIT Madras and GADVASU, Punjab, India.
1. Developing sustainable nanotechnology for agriculture applications: Nanotechnologies that fulfill obligations of societal, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability are warranted for overcoming challenges in food safety and security. In collaboration with other groups, Dr George is developing nanomaterials of natural chemistry to deliver bioactive chemicals to control infections in animals, and plants.
2. Role of dietary nanomaterials in human health: While nanomaterials (NMs) are copiously incorporated in food and agriculture products, there are prominent knowledge gaps on the fate and potential health risks associated with ingested NMs. Studies from Dr George’s group have shown the transformation of NMs in response to food processing conditions and digestive tract interactions with food proteins, and their relevance in food allergy.
3. Developing an adverse outcome pathway model of the gastro-intestinal toxicology for hazard profiling of NMs and chemicals: The increasing number of NMs/chemicals/toxins with unique physicochemical properties is overwhelming traditional toxicology strategies that rely on animal models for safety assessment. To circumvent challenges associated with safety screening, my group conducted studies aimed at advancing the tools and methods for the toxicity profiling of emerging environmental contaminants. This theme has three research objectives: (a) identifying measurable events embedded in adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) relevant to gastro-intestinal health, (b) developing high-throughput screening assays for the simultaneous measurement of multiple biological perturbations in cell models, and (c) establishing property-activity relationships from high-throughput toxicity and material characterization data using computational tools.
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