Guoxinbo

Dr. Guo’s research program focuses on secondary-metabolites in plant and human health, diet and cancer, the effects of functional foods/nutraceuticals on chronic disease risks, and bioactive compounds in natural products and herbal remedies for anticancer activity. Specific interests include: 1) Health benefits of antioxidants/phytochemicals in fruits, vegetables and whole grains; 2) Biofortification of micronutrients (including folate, carotenoids, vitamin E and C) in crops; 3) Nutritional metabolomics and functional foods for disease prevention and health promotion targeted at degenerative diseases.

Dr. Guo’s Lab built the determination platforms for vitamins, phytochemicals and volatiles by HP LC-MS and GC-MS/MS, and evaluated the biological activities of phenolics, flavonoids and some other bioactive compounds with different cell models and zebrafish model. With the analysis platforms, Dr. Guo’s group has constructed the micronutrients database (including vitamin C, E, carotenoids, folate and minerals) for sweet corn (more than 600 germplasm resources), and finished the evaluation of micronutrients and phytochemicals biosynthesis and accumulation in sweet corn during kernel development, and compared the effect of thermal processing on nutritional quality and bioactive activities in sweet corn. Dr. Guo’s group has finished the phytochemical profiles evaluation of 376 germplasm resources of mung bean, and explored the functional related genes by GWAS combining with the whole genome data for nutritional quality enhanced breeding. Dr. Guo’s group also studied the metabolic network of carotenoids and flavonoids biosynthesis in maize and mung bean sprouts, and fortified micronutrients and phytochemicals by light regulation in sprouted vegetables.