Francesca Danesi, who holds a degree in Food Science and Technology and a PhD in Food Science, is an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna where she teaches Biochemistry and Food Science.
She is also scientific head of the Quality, Nutrition and Health Unit of the Interdepartmental Centre for Industrial Agri-Food Research.
Her research focuses on human nutrition and nutritional biochemistry, with particular attention to how bioactive food compounds are released during digestion and how they modulate inflammatory and redox responses at the intestinal level. She works with in vitro digestion models and cell cultures, and is also involved in the nutritional characterization of foods. A significant formative experience was her time as a visiting PhD student at the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 2008, where she deepened her studies in the field of nutrigenomics.
A key moment in her career was the coordination of the NIKE project "New Insight and Knowledge on anti-inflammatory Effectiveness of dietary phenolics". This project, funded by the 'Scientific Independence of young Researchers' (SIR) program of the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, was one of only 55 selected from 1,909 proposals in the Life Sciences field, with a success rate of less than 3%. With funding of 428,210 euros, the project explored the anti-inflammatory effects of foods in chronic bowel diseases.
She led the University of Bologna research unit within the INFIRE project (PRIN 2022) and was PI of the GREENER project (ALMAIDEA 2022, ranked first in the Sustainability line) on the interaction between dietary nanomaterials and the gastrointestinal tract. She also takes part in LIKE-A-PRO (Horizon Europe) and has been involved in the PNRR Extended Partnership ONFOODS. She previously collaborated on the European projects PATHWAY-27, which focused on studying bioactive food components in relation to health claims, and BaSeFood, as well as on the COST Action INFOGEST, dedicated to food digestion and the use of in vitro simulated digestion models.
She was a member of the Board of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition (2019–2024) and took part in the working group for the fifth revision of the Italian Dietary Reference Values (LARN). She is Academic Editor for the journals Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases and Journal of Food Biochemistry, and sits on the Scientific Committee of the Women&Tech Association.
