Team

Following her Food Chemistry studies at  Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Hannah Zenker obtained her PhD degree from Wageningen University & Research in October 2020, where she worked in the Food Quality and Design Group of Prof. Vincenzo Fogliano. During her PhD she investigated the effect of heating on the immunogenicity and digestion of cow’s milk proteins together with Prof. Harry Wichers, Prof. Kasper Hettinga, and Dr. Malgozarta Teodorowicz.

After her PhD studies, she conducted a 6-month postdoctoral project on protein glycation and oxidation of plant-based meat analogues together with Prof. Anja Janssen, Prof. Julia Keppler, and Prof Guido Bosch at Wageningen University & Research.

Having obtained personal funding from the scholarship program ”Promotion of Equal Opportunities for Women in Research and Teaching’ (FFL)”, she moved to the Chair of Food Chemistry at FAU as a postdoctoral researcher and worked on the role of Maillard Reaction-induced modifications of digestion-derived peptides on the activation of dendritic cells.

In December 2024, she started as a Junior group leader of the Food Safety and Quality Group at the Chair of Food Chemistry.

Research focus

Hannah Zenker’s research focuses on the immunomodulation of food proteinaceous compounds and food processing-induced modifications. Her research combines the identification of native and processing-induced structural motifs that affect the sensitization of immune cells to food proteins with digestibility evaluation. Next to this, her interest expands towards the effect of early allergen exposure via human breast milk on allergic sensitization.

Her vision is to establish untargeted analytical approaches to identify immunomodulatory structures both before and after gastrointestinal digestion to substantially improve the allergy risk assessment of novel food proteins.

Identification of sequential epitopes from food allergens

In a recently funded project, the immunopeptidome of food allergens will be characterized. Next to the basic analytical characterization, the effect of food processing on the immunopeptidome will be investigated and correlated to the effect on allergic sensitization.

Characterization of gastrointestinal digests from food allergens

The main route of food allergen exposure is via the gastrointestinal tract. The molecules present at the different time points of gastrointestinal digestion and the different physiological conditions throughout adolescence are not fully characterized. Hence, analytical methods are established to obtain a comprehensive picture of the gastrointestinal digests of food allergens with the focus on protein and peptides analysis via LC-MS and LC-MS/MS approaches.

Food allergens in human breast milk

Funded by the women’s faculty price of FAU Faculty of Sciences, a new research line was started that focuses on the exposure of infants to food allergens via human breast milk. A central aspect is the identification of the form in which food allergens are present in human breast milk and in which form they encounter the mucosal immune system of the infant.

Within our project related to immunomodulation by food we already collaborate with several national and international researchers from different disciplines. We are always happy to start new collaborations.