Dr. Christine Stübner, who has been working as a postdoc in the Tandem Niederrhein project at The Hochschule Niederrhein since the beginning of 2024, has been awarded the "Future Prize of the Food Chemistry Society 2024". Stübner received the distinction from the Food Chemistry Society (LChG) at the 52nd German Food Chemistry Days in Freising. The prize recognizes outstanding dissertations in the field of food chemistry that stand out for their innovation and relevance for the future of the subject.

Dr. Stübner's dissertation entitled "Development of the Automated Solvent-Assisted Flavor Evaporation and its Application to the Identification of the Key Odorants in Walnut Kernels" was written at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich. In her work, she further developed the existing method of solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) and optimized it into an automated process. This method was then used to identify the key odorants of walnut kernels.

Dr. Stübner was able to show that only two key aroma compounds are sufficient to reproduce the characteristic walnut aroma: sotolone, which smells like Maggi, and (2E,4E,6Z)-nona-2,4,6-trienal, which smells like oatmeal. This finding is not only scientifically relevant, but also makes it easy to recreate the aroma of walnuts in the kitchen: a teaspoon of oat flakes and two drops of Maggi are enough to imitate the smell of walnuts.

Dr. Stübner has been working as a postdoctoral researcher in the BMBF-funded Tandem Niederrhein project at The Hochschule Niederrhein since 1 January 2024. Her core research areas are food and bioanalytics, in collaboration with Dreidoppel GmbH in the field of aroma analysis.