Professor Careri Keynote Speaker at the XXVIII National Congress of the Italian Chemical Society

Professor Maria Careri, Full Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Parma (partner of the METROFOOD-IT Consortium), gave an invited keynote lecture at the XXVIII National Congress of the Italian Chemical Society ‘SCI 2024 Chemistry, Elements of the Future’ (Milan, 26-30 August 2024) (https://sci2024.org/speakers/). The Congress discussed the key role chemistry plays in addressing the challenges posed by sustainable development: circular economy, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, safeguarding health and guiding the transition to the economy and society of the future. In this context, Professor Careri presented a talk entitled ‘The metrological approach for the future of analytical chemistry in food science: issues, synergies and challenges’, focusing on the fundamental role of metrology, an emerging discipline guaranteeing the reliability of measurements, underlying the mutual recognition of analytical results at international level, and an important aspect in the application of analytical methodologies to the control of food quality, safety and authenticity. The importance of demonstrating metrological traceability and measurement reliability in the case of online measurement devices in process systems (PAT) in the food industry, as well as in smart screening devices (PON) for food safety, a challenge that is not easy to solve, was also a focus of the talk. While presenting the issues of analytical metrology and nanometrology, the keynote lecture also highlighted how the challenges imposed by national and European legislation in the field of food safety can be usefully addressed by the METROFOOD-IT research infrastructure, which is part of the European METROFOOD-RI - Infrastructure for promoting metrology in food and nutrition, included in the ESFRI Roadmap for the Health and Food domain.