• Theme 1 - Food quality
• Theme 2 - Plant nutritional aspects of food quality
• Theme 3 - Analytical method development

For students wishing to work within these topics,. M.Sc. and B.Sc. projects are currently available. Please contact Kristian Holst Laursen (holst@plen.ku.dk) for further information.

• Plant-microbiome interactions in modern and ancient barley
• INTACT Food: Implementation of Nuclear Techniques for Authentication of Foods with High-Value Labelling Claims
• SoilTracker: Forensic toolkit for fingerprinting soil
• FoodIntegrity: Assuring the integrity of the European food chain
• IsoTracer: Compound-specific isotope ratio analysis for tracing nutrients in the soil-plant system – PhD project
• Compound-specific isotope ratio analysis for authentication of high-value plant products – PhD project

• Novak V, Adler J, Husted S, Fromberg A and Laursen KH (2019): Authenticity testing of organically grown vegetables by stable isotope ratio analysis of oxygen in plant-derived sulphate. Food Chemistry, 291: 59-67. 
• Ballin NZ and Laursen KH (2019): To target or not to target? Definitions and nomenclature for targeted versus non-targeted analytical food authentication. Trends in Food Science and Technology, 86: 537-543. 
• Laursen KH, Bontempo L, Camin F and Roβmann A (2016): Advances in isotopic analysis for food authenticity testing. In: Advances in Food Authenticity Testing. 227-252. Edited by Gerard Downey. Woodhead Publishing. Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition. ISBN: 9780081002209 
• Laursen KH, Schjoerring JK, Kelly SD and Husted S (2014): Review: Authentication of organically grown plants - advantages and limitations of atomic spectroscopy for multi-element and stable isotope analysis. Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 59: 73-82. 
• Laursen KH, Mihailova A, Kelly SD, Epov VN, Bérail S, Schjoerring JK, Donard OFX, Larsen EH, Pedentchouk N, Marca-Bell AD, Halekoh U, Olesen JE and Husted S (2013): Is it really organic? - multi-isotopic analysis as a tool to discriminate between organic and conventional plants. Food Chemistry, 141: 2812-2820. 
• Laursen KH, Schjoerring JK, Olesen JE, Askegaard M, Halekoh U and Husted S (2011): Multielemental Fingerprinting as a tool for Authentication of Organic Wheat, Barley, Faba Bean, and Potato. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 59: 4385-4396. 

• Kristian Holst Laursen
• Vlastimil Novak
• Maria Monrad Rieckmann
• Samir Ben Chaabane

Our offices are located in the Copenhagen Plant Science Centre (1^st floor)

International collaboration

• FIBL (Switzerland)
• IAEA/FAO (Austria)
• IASMA (Italy)
• James Hutton Institute (Scotland)
• Karolinska Institutet (Sweden)
• Netherlands Forensics Institute (Netherlands)
• UC-Davis (USA)
• Yale University (USA)

National collaboration

• Aarhus University
• Danish Veterinary and Food Administration 
• Foss
• National Police and National Kriminalteknisk Center (NKC)
• NextFood
• Technical University of Denmark – National Food Institute

Collaboration at University of Copenhagen

• Dept. of Biology
• Dept. of Food Science
• Dept. of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management
• Dept. of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports
• Globe Institute

We offer workshops and presentations to external stakeholders on plant nutrients, food quality and analytical chemistry. Contact Kristian Holst Laursen (holst@plen.ku.dk) for further information.