New York, May 28, 2004
New York, Professor Kalidas Shetty of the University of Massachusetts,
a scientist of Indian origin, is among five recipients of the first
Jefferson Science Fellowship announced by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Kalidas Shetty, associate professor of food science at Umass, Amherst,
Dr. Julian Adams from the University of Michigan, Bruce Averill from
the University of Toledo, Dr. Melba Crawford from the University of
Texas at Austin, and David Easton from the University of California
at Riverside were feted by the State Department.
"The dynamic spirit of science and its search for new ideas has
animated America since its earliest days," Powell said in his speech,
adding, "The US itself was an experiment in political science,
an unprecedented experiment in liberty and in self-government."
He noted how Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were both scientists
as well as diplomats and that America needs a strong partnership between
the two disciplines so that diseases, weapons of mass destruction and
alleviating poverty could be dealt with and overcome
Title: Professor
Specialty: Food Biotechnology
Understanding the synthesis and regulation of phenolic metabolites
in plants is important for use of natural antioxidants and antimicrobial
agents for food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical applications. Current
research has focused on screening superior phenolics-producing clonal
lines using tissue culture techniques and development of non-GMO clonal
systems that produce higher levels of specific phenolic compounds for
health and food pathogen targets.
Functional phenolic metabolites also can be enzymatically released
and mobilized during solid state fermentation of grain legumes and fruit
products. This has immediate implications for developing functional
foods and food-based nutraceuticals.
On the environmental side, development of solid-state fermentation
technology is providing the means to produce value-added products from
fruit, vegetable and fishery processing wastes.
Research Interests
Natural food preservative production by elite plant clonal systems using
tissue culture and molecular techniques Solid-state fermentation of
legumes and fruit systems for nutraceuticals
Development of novel glycosidases using solid-state fermentation to
produce functional phenolic ingredients for functional foods
Antimicrobial effects and mechanisms linked to phenolic phytochemicals
Yeast and mammalian culture systems to screen anti-cancer and immune-modulating
phytochemicals
Potential Applications
Health-functional ingredients from fermented legumes and fruits
Novel and elite nutraceutical and phyto-pharmaceutical-producing plant
cloning using tissue culture and molecular techniques
Food-grade phenolic ingredients as food preservatives, nutraceuticals
and animal feed supplements
Antimicrobials against food-borne bacterial pathogens
Value-added products for organic agriculture from fruit and fishery
processing wastes