Dr. Yuan Yao

Assistant Professor

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Dr. Yao's group integrates fundamental research with industrial development. His interests include the creation, characterization, and applications of novel carbohydrates, research of interactions among food ingredients, and development of value-added processing in the ethanol industry. Based on his extensive experiences with carbohydrates in food and non-food systems, Dr. Yao leads the research and development in the following areas.  

§          Oligosaccharides with tailored digestibility

Dr. Yao targets the development of oligosaccharides (specialty corn syrups) with different digestibility. His group has developed technologies to manipulate carbohydrate profiles, thus tailoring the ratio among rapidly digestible, slowly digestible, and resistant oligosaccharides in corn syrups. These specialty corn syrups can be used to replace sugar and regular corn syrups in foods and confer extended energy release or prebiotic function.    

§          Enzymatic and genetic starch modifications 

Dr. Yao's group extracts enzymes from maize and studies their in vitro functions on starch physiochemical properties and nutrition value. In addition, the group follows two paths to identify maize mutants with novel starch: Single Kernel Screening (SKS) and Targeted Starch Modification (TSM). In TSM, the relationships between starch structure and the activities of starch synthetic enzymes are identified and used to guide mutant selections. 

§          Process innovation for ethanol industry

Novel technologies are explored by Dr. Yao's group to enhance the economic efficiency of corn-to-ethanol processing. The physicochemical properties of corn meal components are examined after a series of specific treatments. The goal of this research is to substantially reduce the energy and cost required for ethanol manufacturing, and to retain the quality of value-added co-products.   

Selected Publications

Yao, Y., Guiltinan, M.J., and, Thompson, D.B. High performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) and fluorophore-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis (FACE) to describe the chain length distribution of debranched starch. 2005, Carbohydrate Research, 340: 701-710

Yao, Y., Thompson, D.B., and Guiltinan, M.J. Maize starch branching enzyme (SBE) isoforms and amylopectin structure: in the absence of SBEIIb, the further absence of SBEIa leads to increased branching. 2004, Plant Physiology, 136: 3515-3523

Yao, Y., Zhang, J. and Ding, X. Partial beta-amylolysis retards starch retrogradation in rice product. 2003, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 51: 4066-4071

Yao, Y., Zhang, J. and Ding, X. Retrogradation of starch mixtures containing rice starch. 2003, Journal of Food Science, 68: 260-265

Yao, Y., Zhang, J. and Ding, X. Structure-retrogradation relationship of rice starches in purified starches and cooked rice grains: a statistical investigation. 2002, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 50: 7420-742

Yao, Y., Guiltinan, M.J., Shannon, J.C., and Thompson, D.B. Single kernel sampling method for maize starch analysis while maintaining kernel vitality. 2002, Cereal Chemistry, 79: 757–762

Yao, Y. and Ding, X. Pulsed NMR study of rice starch retrogradation. 2002, Cereal Chemistry, 79: 751-756

Blauth, S.L., Yao, Y., Klucinec, J.D., Shannon, J.C., Thompson, D.B., and Guiltinan, M.J. Identification of Mutator insertional mutants of starch-branching enzyme 2a in corn. 2001, Plant Physiology, 125: 1396-1405.

e-mail: yao1@purdue.edu

Address:
Department of Food Science
745 Agriculture Mall Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2009

Phone: (765) 494-6317