Hot Topic Symposia
Special Hot Topic Symposia were developed in an effort to expand the breadth, scope, and timeliness of the technical program at the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo. Several Symposia were held concurrently—immediately after the ISF Plenary Lecture—with no competition from Division programming.
Bio-based Alternatives to Chemical Feedstocks
Continuing the theme from the Tuesday morning ISF Plenary Lecture , this Hot Topic Symposium featured a panel of leading researchers and industry representatives. The panel will explore the current state of the art in bio-refining and biomass conversion and what the future held for biological routes to surfactant and detergent feedstocks.
Panelists:
Wolff Spendel, Miami University of Ohio
Jack Lewnard, GreenFuel Technologies
Jacques Monnier, CANMET Energy Technology Centre
Omega-3: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Susan Allport, author of The Queen of Fats--Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them, takes us from Greenland to Africa to Israel, presented a fascinating historic account of how scientists, including several AOCS members, came to understand the role of omega-3s in our diet and the effect they have on reducing risk of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and obesity; and improving brain function and overall health. William E.M. Lands, author of Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health, then picked up the discussion. He covered the mechanisms of omega-3 action and how we can look ahead to preventing diet-based diseases.
Session Moderator: Doug Bibus
Technical and Product Visionaries and Serial Innovators: Repeatedly Creating and Delivering Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Organizations
Field Observations. Bruce A. Vojak1,2, Raymond L. Price2 and Abbie Griffin3, 1Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, 2Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, 3David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah, USA
A Personal Perspective. Thomas W. Osborn, Research Fellow, Victor Mills Society, The Procter & Gamble Company, USA
Extensive research has been conducted by Griffin, Price and Vojak, over the past four years that investigates individuals who have repeatedly conceived and commercialized breakthrough new products in large mature firms. These “Technical and Product Visionaries and Serial Innovators” (TV/PV/Sis) exhibit a combination of broad and deep technical skills, unique insight into customer needs, the creativity to see the connections between the two, a political savvy that gets their projects considered for commercialization, and the facilitative capability to shepherd the innovation through the organization and into the marketplace. In many respects, they transcend, or operate at a higher level than, more traditional innovation processes, such at the Stage-Gate® process. Collectively, these characteristics make TV/PV/SIs unique and powerful, and permit them to have significant financial impact on their organization. This Hot Topic session will consist of two parts: one presentation reviewing the results of the research conducted to date on these individuals and one providing the personal insights of such an innovation “exemplar”.
Session Moderator: Mark Matlock, Archer Daniels Midland, USA
Publishing in the Digital Age: Challenges and Requirements for the Authors and Users of SpringerLink
Writing and editing scientific papers has become a great challenge for authors and editors. In this session Gertraud Griepke, Director, Springer-Verlag GmbH., described these different aspects publishing faces today. She addressed the issues of authors, editors, readers, libraries, and search engines like Google, etc. This up-to-date talk also incorporated practical examples, tips, and tricks. This Hot Topic Session gave the delegate an outlook for future requirements as well.
SpringLink is one of the world’s leading interactive databases for high-quality STM journals, book series, books, reference works, and the Online Archives Collection. It is a powerful central access point for researchers and scientists.
Plan Your Oils Future: Advice from the Field on Formulating with Enhanced Oils
Hosted by the United Soybean Board (USB), attendees at this hot topic session learned the latest news on oil composition, product application, stability testing and expected timelines for enhanced soybean oil traits, and hear from food industry representatives who are on the front lines of the trans fat reformulation challenge on how the emerging solutions are performing in the lab and beyond. Each trait enhancement or technology innovation is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Mary Miller discussed KFC’s road to low-lin. Regis Holden, Eat ‘n Park Hospitality Group, discussed removing trans fats from today’s menus. Don Banks presented QUALISOY’s role in trait commercialization, new traits in the pipeline, testing updates, etc. This hot topic session helped attendees identify the edible oil strategies right for them and learn of some of the successes and opportunities emerging in the industry.
Session Moderator: Steve Poole, QUALISOY Staff, Director of Soybean Oil and Protein Programs, United Soybean Board
Confirmed Speakers:
Don Banks, President, Edible Oils Technology
Regis Holden, Director of Menu Development, Eat ‘n Park Hospitality Group
Mary Miller, Senior Manager of Product Quality, KFC
Open Innovation: The Key to Increasing and Sustaining the Rate of Innovation in a Fast Moving Global Economy.
In the commercial R&D world, we are experiencing a globally competitive marketplace in which technological capability is expanding rapidly, a marketplace where speed, agility, and creativity are a prerequisite for success. In parallel, advances in virtual communication mean that knowledge and information transfer is happening faster than ever before. In order to stay competitive, we must look outside the traditional R&D structure to increase the flow of ideas and solutions to technological and commercial challenges. When we can match our internal R&D core competencies with a well-developed global web of connections, we increase our opportunities for success. Open innovation is quickly becoming the preferred method to find technology solutions from non-traditional sources. Keith Grime, from Procter & Gamble, introduced the open innovation concept and discusses ways P&G has internalized the process through a "connect and develop" approach. Neil Widlak, from Archer Daniels Midland, highlighted ways the AOCS can facilitate open innovation. AOCS is uniquely positioned to serve as the interface between two very large and important industries and associated technology sources, critical to many product areas – fats, oils and foods on one hand and the surfactants and detergents on the other.
Dr. John deMan Honorary Session
This hot topic session was co-sponsored by Archer Daniels Midland and Fractec Research and Development.
Dr. John deMan's contributions to fats and oils research have been significant. He has worked extensively in the areas of fat crystallization and microstructure, and he has had a substantial impact on our understanding of the properties of dairy fat and palm oil. He has also been instrumental in investigating microstructure to better understand the rheological properties of fats. In all, he has authored over 200 papers.
- Half a Century of Fats and Oils Research. J.M. deMan, University of Guelph, Canada
- Fat Polymorphism: A Historical Perspective. Ralph Timms, Retired
- Crystallization Research in MPOB: Past and Present. C.L. Chong, Zaliha Omar, Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Malaysia
- Modeling the Microstructure of Fats. Alejandro Marangoni, University of Guelph, Canada
Session Moderators:
Dérick Rousseau, Ryerson University, Canada
Philippe Rousset, Nestec SA, Switzerland