Get to know: Prof. Frank Devlieghere

Listeria monocytogenes infections in Europe are still increasing, despite the quality assurance systems which are nowadays fully  implemented in the food industry. In contrast with that, the European  food industry has to answer to the demand for milder preserved foods with less or no additives to be added and less intense heat processes to be applied. In this context, bacteriophage based technologies such as Phageguard, clearly can provide an extra hurdle to prevent Listeria monocytogenes contamination of modern foods. - Prof. Frank Devlieghere

Frank Devlieghere is professor in food microbiology and food preservation, fish and meat technology at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering since 2003. He finished his PhD in 2000 in the field of predictive microbiology at Ghent University. From then he became a post-doc researcher at Ghent University and performed research mainly in the areas of predictive microbiology and microbial aspects of food preservation. As a professor he is now responsible for the research in the field of food preservation with the following main research topics: predictive microbiology, microbial spoilage mechanisms, microbial risk assessment, new decontamination techniques, microbial aspects of food packaging, mild preservation, preventive preservation measures towards mycotoxin production, chemical preservation of food products. He has been promoter of 23 PhD students.