Dr Peter Roupas: knowledge management for developing new foods

Dr Peter Roupas focuses on researching and developing regulatory proposals for new foods and ingredients.

• 7 November 2007 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Dr Peter Roupas is the Team Leader of the Knowledge Management team within the Food Futures Flagship Theme on natural food structuring and developing innovative foods by design.

The Knowledge Management team is involved in carrying out much of the due diligence for new proposals and projects.

Within the Flagship's Designed Food and Ingredients research team, Dr Roupas is developing regulatory proposals for new foods and ingredients for submission to government regulatory authorities.

The team is building expertise on regulatory issues to ensure that the bioactive food ingredients selected within the Flagship may be added into foods and addressing food regulations covering the target markets.

The team also advises on possible strategies to address regulatory and registration requirements or requesting amendments to food standards to accommodate new developments. 

Dr Roupas' research focuses on:

• analysing regulatory issues with respect to:
  • foods
  • processing aids
  • food ingredients
  • additives such as bioactive compounds
• sourcing and evaluating scientific, technological and medical information: including:
  • analysis of biological actions of food ingredients and bioactives
  • the effects of storage and packaging on the stability of food ingredients
• sourcing and analysing market information, for example:
  • market sizes
  • company profiles
  • identification of market trends and consumer attitudes
• identification of patents and intellectual property (IP).

Background

Dr Roupas's university research focused on cell biology techniques for the study of intracellular signalling mechanisms involved in insulin-resistance (resulting in diabetes) and in the insulin-like and anti-insulin effects of growth hormone.

For the past 13 years Dr Roupas has been a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO.

He has been a Project Leader in several projects on dairy food processing, functionality and nutritional/health attributes.

He is currently a Project Leader of projects for the Food Futures Flagship relating to:

• functional ingredients
• market intelligence
• innovation management.

Academic qualifications

Dr Roupas has been awarded a:

• Bachelor of Science with Honours in Biochemistry, from Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of Medicine, also at Monash University, in 1988.

His doctoral project was on the use of cell biology/tissue culture techniques to study the intracellular processing of growth hormone and the metabolic actions of growth hormone.

Dr Roupas also undertook three years of postdoctoral study at the University of Michigan, USA.

Achievements

Dr Roupas's expertise has been recognised through:

• Loftus Hills Medal from the Dairy Industry Association of Australia, an award for publishing papers that have made a significant impact on the industry, 2007
• the Australian Journal of Dairy Technology Award for the best paper published in the journal, 2002
• Australian Postdoctoral Fellow, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), 1992-95
• Eli Lilly Diabetes Fellow, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, 1991
• Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International Fellow, New York, USA, 1989-91
• American Diabetes Association Fellow, in Michigan, USA, 1988.

Dr Roupas has been a research grant reviewer for:

• the NHMRC
• the Hoechst Diabetes Research and Development Grants
• the Australian Research Council
• the Diabetes Australia Research Trust
• Dairy Australia.

Dr Roupas has also:

• been an editorial reviewer for eight scientific journals
• been Scientific Editor for Elsevier Science, UK/The International Dairy Journal, 2002-present
• published 42 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals
• written seven invited book chapters.

He is also a member of:

• the Society of Editors
• Australian Science Communicators.

Find out more about the work of Food Futures Flagship.