About the Center

WHO WE ARE

Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research is a university-industry research center that conducts fundamental and applied research on the structure-function and health-related impacts of food carbohydrates (starches, hydrocolloids, dietary fibers, and low-molecular-weight carbohydrates).  It is centered at Purdue University, a top educational institution in Indiana, USA.

The Center comprises world-renowned faculty (16) and their research groups with expertise ranging from complex carbohydrate analysis, synthetic biology, gut microbiology, and nutrition to processing, rheology, and health outcomes. Along with supporting staff, we provide a valuable resource for carbohydrate-producing and -utilizing industries, consumers, and policymakers by conducting cutting-edge research, sharing knowledge on the science and impact of food carbohydrates, and providing analytical services to solve technical problems. 

Our new research focus areas are:

• Design of healthy processed foods (designed carbohydrate ingredients, sugar reduction/replacement, novel health-related ingredients)
• Innovations in processed food quality (texture, quality, novel monitoring techniques)
• Sustainable and clean-label foods (clean label, quality, by-product streams, biobased plastics, plant-based forward foods, edible coatings and packaging)
• Carbohydrates and healthy outcomes (microbiome, gut health, brain function, weight control, metabolic health, sex differences)

 MISSION

The Center's mission is to enhance the efficiency and value of carbohydrate use in consumer goods by generating and sharing knowledge of carbohydrates' chemical, physical, and biological properties.

Vision

To be the premier food carbohydrate research center via:

• Being the leader in research related to food carbohydrates
• Being the leader in graduate education related to food carbohydrates
• Exhibiting the highest level of creativity and professionalism
• Maintaining successful, productive partnerships with our member companies

FOCUS

The Center serves carbohydrate-producing, carbohydrate-utilizing, and related industries through:

• Leveraging knowledge generation from governmental and institutional-funded research on carbohydrates to develop insightful research with value to industries.
• Educational opportunities for company scientists, both new and experienced, to understand how properties of carbohydrates and related biopolymers translates to their functional behaviors, including rheology, stability, and nutritional impacts.
• Creating a connection between the key leaders in industry with world-recognized academic researchers to rapidly generate solutions to technical problems.
• Analytical services that add to the portfolio of industrial capacity, resolving technical questions and contributing to the resolution of larger research questions.

CONTRIBUTIONS

• Stimulation of gut hormones by specific non-starch polysaccharides for improved satiety and health
• Comprehensive development of the understanding of physical and chemical structures to promote desirable microbial communities in the intestine
• Improvements in gut-health-promoting activities of carbohydrates by interactions with food-relevant phenolic compounds
• Structural determination of non-starch polysaccharides used for viscosification and/or nutritional impacts
• Improved understanding and models to describe the gelatinization of starches as influenced by starch structure and oligosaccharides
• Performance of starches in baked goods after replacement of sucrose with other oligosaccharides or polyols
• Production of oligosaccharides by microbial engineering
• Functionalization of carbohydrate-rich plant materials using high moisture extrusion with or without enzymatic modification
• Isolation of carbohydrates from grains, oilseeds, or legumes using dry separation technologies, enzyme-assisted approaches, and non-traditional solvents
• Improved utility of starch and non-starch polysaccharide materials after chemical modification
• Structural and functional changes in mixtures of plant-proteins and carbohydrates due to their interactions
• Contributions of carbohydrates to the adsorption and stabilization of emulsion or foam interfaces by proteins or surface-active carbohydrate materials
• Impacts of microstructure on digestibility for grains, oilseeds, and legumes
• Determination of the relationship of starch fine structural detail to cereal product texture