Functional Grains Centre researchers attended the 67^th Australasian Grain Science Association Conference held in Christchurch New Zealand.

PhD candidates Ms Esther Callcott and Mr Stephen Cork prepared this report.

The conference begins

After our mammoth trip across the ditch, we attended our first day at the conference. It began with a welcome speech from host Professor Charles Brennan. The first talks were based on the theme ‘The Future of Grains’. This included topics around the health effects and functionality of wheat bran fibres, optimising wheat alternative doughs with protein supplementation, and consumer perception of cakes make from red kidney beans.

Students took the floor for the second half of the day. In this session students from all universities and research centres, like the Functional Grains Centre (FGC) had the opportunity to present their research. The professionalism and delivery of the presentations during this session was outstanding. The students were judged by a secret panel.

We heard from students that were investigating the functionality of pasta made from wheat-based doughs supplemented with mushroom powder, how stevianna can influence the physical properties of muffin batter and how in-vitro digestion of milled cereal grains can be associated with digestion in pigs. FGC PhD students gave talks on their current research ranging from in-vitro digestibility of rice using different rice processing methods, to the impact of polyphenols derived from coloured rice, barley and sorghum on colorectal cancer cells. The afternoon also saw the student award presentations, Ms Shiwangni Rao, Ms Kiara Thompson, Ms Esther Callcott and Mr James Lee from the FGC all received awards for their work. Later that night we had the conference dinner and saw good food, wine and entertainment.