Rate My Professor Rewati Raman Bhattarai

Specializing in food sciences, Dr Bhattarai's research focuses on understanding structure-function relationships in plant-based foods and designing novel sustainable ingredients for food, pharmaceutical, and biomaterial applications. His investigations explore innovative technologies to enhance techno-functionalities in plant proteins from cereals, legumes, and oilseeds, including extraction and purification of bioactive protein fractions as nutritional supplements, protein cross-linking for gluten-like properties in non-gluten sources, dry fractionation for efficient extraction of proteins, starch, and fibres, and methods to create fibrous structures in meat analogues such as extrusion and electrospinning. Additional interests encompass sustainable utilisation of Australian bush foods and food wastes for high-value ingredients. He completed an ARC-Linkage project as a Chief Investigator to develop the process for purification of the bioactive legume protein γ-conglutin as a nutraceutical for maintaining healthy blood glucose levels. Dr Bhattarai has secured major funding including an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant ($443k), industry funding ($257k), Innovation Booster Grant ($40k), Maitri Grant ($250k), Australian Synchrotron grant ($64k in-kind), SPARC grant ($147k), and Curtin-Malaysia CMRI-CRS grant ($17k). A patent is under development for an innovative method to produce allergen- and preservative-free, high-protein, stable plant-based milk alternatives. Key publications include 'Thermo-mechanical pre-treatments modulate the structure, protein and starch digestibility, and thermal and pasting properties of sorghum flour' (Food Chemistry, 2026), 'Effects of extrusion cooking on nutritional and health attributes of sorghum and millets' (International Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2025), 'A concise review of millet milk development' (Journal of Food Science, 2025), and 'Extraction, Isolation and Nutritional Quality of Coffee Protein' (2022).