The major research focus of Dr. Qiao’s
laboratory is to utilize food- or
nature-derived materials, in
combination with advanced
bioprocessing technologies, to create
scalable and cost-effective
encapsulation solutions for the
protection and target delivery of
bioactives (e.g., antimicrobials,
antioxidants, probiotics) into food,
animal and human systems. Primary
application areas will focus on
organic animal feed, edible food
packaging, and human dietary
supplements, etc. For starting, the
research in Dr. Qiao’s laboratory will
include the following directions: *
Discover novel low environmental
footprint processing techniques to
extract bioactive compounds and
biomaterials from foods and other
nature-derived products including food
wastes, and newly developed or
underutilized nature resources. *
Microencapsulating and controlled
release techniques based solely on
food- or nature-derived materials for
the target delivery of bioactives,
including antimicrobials,
antioxidants, and probiotics. *
Biomanufacturing of critical
nutritional ingredients and bioactive
products. These research directions
are envisioned to be highly
collaborative with researchers and
experts across a wide range of
different fields and these newly
developed technologies from Dr. Qiao’s
group are expected to be
commercialized very soon through
incubating more startup companies in
each field led by motivated students
and postdocs under Dr. Qiao’s
guidance. The goal of research and
commercialization efforts from Dr.
Qiao’s lab is to 1) provide
nutritious, safe, and affordable food
and health products to the increasing
number of populations with minimal
impact on our environment and 2)
incubate the next generation of food
and biotech entrepreneurs to execute
that.