BioChemCore is a Portuguese research team belonging to the Mountain Research Centre of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança.

BiochemCore's research interests are:

1) Chemistry of Natural Products: Extraction, identification, fractionation and isolation of chemical compounds in natural matrices (mostly food matrices).

- Chromatographic and spectrometric techniques: GC-FID, GC-MS, HPLC-DAD, HPLC-RI, HPLC-FL, LC-MS, NMR.

- Analysis of individual compounds, such as: fatty acids, sugars, organic acids, vitamins, carotenoids, triacylglycerols, steroids, phenolic compounds.

2) Nutraceuticals and functional foods: development of nutraceuticals and innovative food formulations with functional properties.

- Evaluation of antioxidant properties by chemical and biochemical assays with animal cells.

- Evaluation of antitumor properties though screening on human tumor cell lines, cell cycle and apoptosis analysis; Hepatotoxicity assays.

- Incorporation of natural extracts/fractions/compounds (free or protected) in food formulations.

3) Technology of Natural Products: Emergent technologies for conservation of food matrices (guaranteeing food quality, safety and security).

- Gamma and electron beam irradiation of food products.

- Application of natural preserving ingredients.

4) Medicinal Chemistry

- Computational Drug Discovery (e.g., QSAR, molecular docking and molecular dynamics).

- High Performance Computing.

- Design of new synthesized derivatives of thienopyridines and thienopyrimidines to be used as anti-angiogenic drugs, and to natural anti-cancer products derived from mushrooms.