Title: Fully funded PhD project in wine chemistry: ANR TRAPMWINE - Swelling Bio-Gel Metal Chelators for Advancing Wine Safety and Oxidative Stability

Description of the subject: Today the agri-food sector faces new EU regulations and societal requirements aimed at ensuring food - wine safety and sustainability. The wine industry is facing a significant challenge in trying to reduce or substitute synthetic additives to satisfy, on the one hand, strong societal expectations and, on the other hand, increasingly strict market specifications. The quality standards for wine analysis are defined in EU wine regulations and include among others the maximum allowable concentrations of certain metals. Metals in wine can originate from both natural and anthropogenic sources, and their concentration can be a significant parameter affecting wine safety and oxidative stability. The removal of transition metals is not an easy task, and many of proposed methods are based to the use of synthetic non-specific polymer fining agents during the winemaking. The potential application of selective bio-sourced metal chelators capable of strongly binding iron, and inactivating all its binding sites, could be an effective
innovant tool for guarantying wine’s safety and oxidative stability. The objective of TrapMWine project is to develop a new food safe hydrogel material that can selectively bind redox active metals to protect wine against oxidation without altering its physico-chemical properties. This program is specifically designed around collaborative sub-projects between the two academic and one industrial partners. As such, it is a remarkable example of PRCE partnership for industrial research about a major societal challenge concerning food safety and stability.

Keywords: Wine, Metals, Analytical chemistry

PCAV team at UMR PAM presentation: UMR PAM is a research unit made up of 3 teams: PMB (Microbiological and Biotechnological Processes), AFIM (Food, Ferment, Interaction, Microbiota, Environment), and PCAV (Physico-Chemistry of Food and Wine). The PCAV team gathers specialists in physical chemistry and chemistry applied to food and wine. It has expertise in four main areas related to food and wine matrices: valorization of new bio-resources and by-products; formulation of new products; chemical and physical stability of products; and evaluation of product quality and performance. The PCAV team has an analytical platform for studying food products, wine, and packaging. The team enjoys regional, national, and international recognition in key topics related to oenology. The PCAV team also has a well-established network of collaborations with public and private partners.

Doctoral School : « Environnements-santé », Dijon, n° 554.

Candidate profile: Experience in analytical chemistry or a related field
• He/she should be a successful MS student in the field of analytical chemistry
• Interested in mass spectrometry metabolomics
• Interested in wine chemistry
• Highly motivated personality, with the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team on scientifically challenging problems, loves science
• Very good knowledge of written English
• Ambitious, creative with good analytical, interpersonal and communication skills

Application deadline: July 1, 2025, for a start date of the 1st October 2025

Application file: Please send a single pdf file including your CV (2 pages max. including the contact details of two referees), a description of your motivations and research interests, your university transcripts (topics and grades), and relevant experiences.
Email to Dr. Maria Nikolantonaki (maria.nikolantonaki@ube.fr). Applications will be evaluated as they are received until the position is filled. Further information is available upon request