Lina Yonekura
I am Assistant Professor at the Division of Food Sciences (Faculty of Agriculture), Kagawa University. I graduated summa cum laude in Chemistry at the Federal University of Amazonas, Brazil, and pursued my graduate studies in Food Science and Nutrition at Kagawa University, Japan. Following my PhD on the effects of dietary fibre on zinc bioavailability, I worked as a visiting researcher on carotenoid bioavailability and metabolism at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) in Tsukuba, and on polyphenol bioavailability and biological functions at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. A change of address to Europe brought me to the University of Nottingham where I worked on the effect of probiotics in the human gut. I then returned to Kagawa University, Japan, as a tenure track Assistant Professor in Food Sciences.
My research covers the bioavailability of bioactive compounds in food, such as carotenoids and polyphenols as well as their effects on physiological functions and antioxidant properties. Food components may have positive or deleterious effects on the bioavailability of phytochemicals and my research focus on assessing these effects by using cell-based assays, as I believe it is possible to reduce the use of animals in bioavailability research by improving cell-based assays.
Kagawa is located at the heart of Seto Naikai National Park, where olive groves thrive in the Mediterranean-like climate of this island. My passion for table olives found very fertile ground here, where I started a new research line on environmentally-friendly processing methods for table olives as well as their phytochemical profiling and sensory evaluation.
You can find more information about my research via