Yacine Hemar is a newly-appointed Associate Professor of GTIIT. He obtained a PhD in Physics/Fluid Mechanics in 1995 and a Habitation to Direct Research in 2008, both from the University of Strasbourg in France. He has previously worked in Academia (Massey University and the University of Auckland, in New Zealand) and industry (Fonterra in New Zealand, the largest dairy company in the world).  After joining GTIIT, Dr. Yacine Hemar has published five research papers in just five months. He has also made progresses in industry cooperation.

“GTIIT is a very young university nested on a very nice campus. It hosts academics with different expertise and from different horizons. This gives GTIIT a feel of an international academic institution.” Yacine was greatly attracted by GTIIT's focus on innovation and the characteristics of internationalization, which led him to apply for a faculty position in 2018, and physically moved to the campus in Shantou in May this year.

Since working at GTIIT, he has been pleased with his decision. “Technion is a world-ranked university, and I am convinced that GTIIT offers one of the best teaching and research environments in China. GTIIT is also set to attract talented students where they can fulfill their academic and career dreams.”

In terms of teaching, Dr. Yacine has taught last semester part of “Structure, Properties of Food and Biological Materials”, a course given to the third years students in Biotechnology & Food Engineering (BFE). He was also involved this summer in the supervision of Organic Chemistry labs given for the second year students in Chemical Engineering.

Apart from teaching, Yacine also actively promotes cooperation between GTIIT and enterprises. “We have an ongoing research and development projects with Sirio, a large pharmaceutical company, based in Shantou. A Research Manager, Xiaoling Lin, and 4 of our BFE undergraduate students are involved in these research projects.”

Yacine is currently trying to build collaborations with the dairy companies both in Guangdong and in China. “An example of such dairy industry is Happy Food, a Food company which is very successful in the manufacture of processed cheese.”

He works in two research areas. A fundamental one is the effect of processing on biological systems. This has a direct relevance to the structure and function of food products. The second axis is more applied and is dedicated to the development of dairy products (yoghurt and processed cheese) and milk protein ingredients (infant formula). Yacine suggests that GTIIT might be able in the near future help food companies develop novel functional food products. As a first example these products could be made for satiety and weight loss. This could be achieved by incorporating low energy proteins or polysaccharides to reduce food intake. Another example is reducing salt intake. This could be done using 3D printing where the amount of salt is distributed in different layers of the product in order to give a sensation saltiness while in reality the amount of salt is decreased.

Not long after joining GTIIT, Yacine has published 5 research papers in leading academic journals. These papers deal with model food systems such as milk proteins and starch. The work performed involve how to modify the structure of these systems using for example high pressure, chemical, or enzymatic treatments. An important part of the work is the use of large research facilities such as the Shanghai and the Beijing Synchrotron as well as the Neutron Reactor in Sydney, Australia.

“My advice to our students is to take advantage of this international environment to enhance to the maximum both their academic and cultural knowledge.” Besides, Yacine also suggest students taking on, time permitting, some extracurricular activities such as sports (GTIIT has several state-of-the art gym facilities, and nice basketball courts) and music activities. Yacine himself is a person who loves life. “I myself played football at a competitive level when I was a university freshman, and try nowadays to find time to play music.”

Yacine Hemar's papers published since joined GTIIT

R Singh, Y Hemar*, EP Gilbert, Z Wu, Z Yang, Effect of genipin cross-linking on the structural features of skim milk in the presence of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects 603, 125174

J Vella, Y Hemar*, Q Gu, ZR Wu, N Li, T S?hnel, In-situ SAXS Investigation of High-Pressure Triglyceride Polymorphism in Milk Cream and Anhydrous Milk Fat, LWT, 110174

J Zhang, D Liu, Y Liu, Y Yu, Y Hemar, JM Regenstein, P Zhou, Effects of particle size and aging of milk protein concentrate on the biophysical properties of an intermediate moisture model food system, Food Bioscience, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbio.2020.100698.

LMDL Rodriguez, Y Hemar*, Prospecting the applications and discovery of peptide hydrogels in food, Trends in Food Science & Technology (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2020.07.025.

Z Yang, X Xu, Y Hemar*, G Mo, L de Campo, EP Gilbert, Effect of porous waxy rice starch addition on acid milk gels: Structural and physicochemical functionality, Food Hydrocolloids (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2020.106092.

Note: The corresponding author is marked *.

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Text: GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos: provided by interviewee, GTIIT News & Public Affairs