Trailblazer in the field of chemometrics receives award from Royal Foundation. - 07.06.2011

Professor Rasmus Bro from Department of Food Science at LIFE- Faculty of Life Sciences has received an award of DKK 15,000 from His Royal Highness the Prince Consort’s Foundation. The award is given in recognition of Rasmus Bro’s dedicated work to develop a research group who is today a global leader in the field of chemometrics and multivariate data analysis.

Rasmus Bro and his research group are developing new chemometric models that make it possible to extract relevant information from many thousand measurements in e. g. food or medicine.

Chemometrics is a broadly based scientific discipline which involves extracting and visualising information from complicated chemical systems.

Chemometrics is often based on advanced measurements, for example of spectroscopic data, very often measured directly on, e.g., a steak etc. Such measurements generate thousands of figures that reflect the chemical and physical complexity of the sample, a so-called fingerprint.

In themselves, the figures do not make a lot of sense, but the mathematical models used in chemometrics can transform the figures into significant parameters such as the concentration of a substance, the tenderness of meat, the risk of contracting cancer, consumer preferences etc.

Furthermore, Rasmus Bro is heading an initiative to carry out knowledge transfer to industry through the establishment of the research consortium ODIN that offers courses, research collaboration and access to advanced chemometrics to industrial partners all over the world.

For this and other reasons, Rasmus Bro’s research group has been singled out as one of eight elite research areas at LIFE.

The award was presented to Rasmus Bro by HRH the Prince Consort on board the royal Danish yacht ‘Dannebrog’ on 31 May.

The aim of HRH the Prince Consort’s Foundation is enhance the quality of life in Denmark and to further Denmark’s reputation in the fields of culture, business or research as well as to support persons from culture, business or research. The Fund does not accept applications.