Matthias Besler-Scharf, PhD.

• I am a food chemist (governmentally approved) and accomplished my PhD thesis at the University of Hamburg (Germany) in the department of food chemistry. My topic was in the area of allergen analytics among others with the aim to elucidate epitop structures of egg white allergens. Afterwards I published numerous allergen data collections with international co-authors in an online journal Internet Symposium on Food Allergens (www.food-allergens.de).

• I was and I am involved in the development of detection methods by ELISA- and PCR-techniques as well as in studies of the allergenicity of foods e.g. in the framework of the EU-project REDALL (Reduced Allergenicity of Processed Foods containing Animal Allergens), in supporting the DIN-norm committee of food allergens or as an external advisor of the MAVO-project "LowAllergen" (Fraunhofer Institut).

• From 2001 to 2014 I was quality management representative, deputy head of laboratory and approved expert for cross checks according to German food law in a commercial laboratory (LEFO-Institut, Ahrensburg). Besides being one of the managing directors (2007-2014) I was mainly judging the legatimacy of food supplements and dietetic foods (supplemental balanced diet) according to its composition and labeling.

• From 2003 to 2018 I have done safety assessments of cosmetic products.

• see my profile on Research Gate

Alexandra Scharf, MSc.

• I successfully completed my studies in ecotrophology at the University of Applied Science in Hamburg with a Bachelor of Science degree. This was followed by a master’s degree in nutritional sciences at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, which I successfully completed in 2015.

• My bachelor thesis dealt with the development and validation of ELISA methods for the determination of milk and soy allergens in food. In my master's thesis, I developed and validated an ELISA method for the detection of the peanut allergen Ara h 2 in breast milk.

• In 2016 I started my PhD at the Institute of Food Chemistry at the University of Hamburg. Here I dealt with the genome editing technology CRISPR-Cas and its application in bacteria. In addition, I have developed a method based on this system to differentiate fine and consumer cocoa.

• In 2019, I joined DLA as a shareholder in charge of coordinating proficiency tests and deputy management.

• see my profile on Research Gate