Seminar - October 2019

Flavour in Life

Dr Graham Ellender, Dentistry, University of Adelaide

For the Food Values Research Group's October 2019 seminar we are pleased to welcome Dr Graham Ellender.

Flavour is often taken for granted, yet its import is seriously underrated and poorly understood both by laity and professionals. In reality, it is a neural percept comprising diverse senses, largely olfaction accompanied by gustation. Throughout life flavour perception changes. Deficits in flavour develop with aging, modulated by ‘emotional’ factors leading to potential malnutrition or dysnutrition. Significant changes can be the result of various diseases, and their treatment and management. Of particular significance is the impact of cancer and treatments of cancer by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In conjunction with John Coveney, we are undertaking a review of the influence of cancer and its treatment on alterations of taste and smell, and the methods currently employed to ameliorate malnutrition. Certain aspects of gastronomy are viewed as means of regaining purpose and pride in the eating process to mitigate malnutrition from being a prime factor compromising success of current treatment regimes. The review currently undertaken is a prelude to a collaboration with two centres in Europe. Graham will review the significance of the physiology of flavour, the influences of disease and aging and a multidisciplinary approach to gastronomy applied to ‘biomedical gastronomy’.

When: Tuesday 15th October, 12-1pm

Where: Ira Raymond Room, Barr Smith Library, North Terrace Campus, University of Adelaide (click here for campus map)

Graham currently holds an adjunct Senior Lectureship at the University of Adelaide in Dentistry. He graduated with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery, University College Hospital, London, MDSc (Melb) in Dental Prosthetics and Biomaterials and PhD (Melb) in Experimental Pathology, University of Melbourne, and was teaching at Melbourne University for over two decades. After exiting academia, he became a winemaker and developed an academic interest in flavour and gastronomy.