Category: News

Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir has been appointed CEO of Matís ohf. but it is the new company that will be created by merging IFL, RUST and Matvælarannsóknir in Keldnaholt. The new company issued the following press release this morning:

Dr. Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir has been appointed CEO of the newly established company Matís ohf. from 1 January 2007, when the company's actual operations begin. Sjöfn has been the director of the Fisheries Research Institute since 2002, but before that she worked in the field of food safety at the Health Protection Agency (now the Environment Agency) and in research and development at the Institute of Technology in collaboration with the food industry. Sjöfn has also served on committees and confidential positions in this field in recent years, both domestically and abroad. She is 43 years old.

Matís ohf. is a public limited company established by Act no. 68/2006 on 3 June last. for the purpose of merging public food research into one company. The operations of three institutions / units will be merged into one company, Matís ohf. from 1 January 2007, i.e. from the Fisheries Research Institute, RUST (the Environment Agency's research institute) and Matvælarannsóknir á Keldnaholt (collaboration between the Agricultural University and the Institute of Technology.   

Matís ohf. will have its operations in several places in the country, but with headquarters in Reykjavík. Division of Matís ohf. is primarily responsible for research and innovation in the field of food for the benefit of the economy, public health and food security.

All employees of the three units are offered a job at Matís ohf.

For further information, please contact Friðrik Friðriksson, Chairman of the Board, at 896 7350.

Recently, four students in research-related master's studies were added to the IFL aquaculture group in Akureyri, and they are all studying at the Faculty of Business and Science at the University of Akureyri. These are Rut Hermannsdóttir, Bjarni Jónasson and G.Stella Árnadóttir, who all graduated with a BS degree from the Faculty of Natural Resources at the University of Akureyri last spring, and Eyrún Gígja Káradóttir who graduated with a BS degree from the University of Iceland last spring.

Bjarni Jónasson and Ruth Hermannsdóttir worked on their BS projects in research projects that they continue to work on in their master's studies. Ruth participates in the project "Bioactive substances in halibut farming" and Bjarni is a participant in the project "Development of charr feed," but these projects are both funded by the AVS fund.

Stella Árnadóttir worked on his final project for a BS degree in the project "Feed for cod" which was funded by the AVS Fund and the Nordic Industrial Development Fund, but that project was recently completed and the final report will soon be published on the AVS website. In her master's studies, Stella will work on the project “Light control in cod farming” which is being worked on in IFL's experimental fish farms in Ísafjarðardjúpur and is funded by the AVS fund.

Bjarni Jónasson	Eyrún Gígja Káradóttir	Ruth Hermannsdóttir	Stella Árnadóttir

Eyrún Gígja Káradóttir will in his master's degree work on the project "Bætibakteríur í lúðueldi" which recently received a grant from the Rannís Technology Development Fund.

The students have been diligent in presenting their projects and the main results of research in the BS program. An article by Bjarni was recently published in the magazine Ægi and an abridged version of that article will be published soon in the 2nd issue. Rannísblaðið 2006. Rut presented her master's project in a seminar at the Faculty of Business and Natural Sciences at the University of Akureyri on Friday 22 September and was following the presentation in an interview on Channel 1's morning shift on 26 September.

Ruth has also just returned from a major conference on immunology research held in Paris 6-9. last September The purpose of the trip was first and foremost to learn about the main methods used in immunological research today.

Hildigunnur Rut Jónsdóttir has for the past two years been a student in research-related master's studies at the Faculty of Natural Resources at the University of Akureyri. Hildigunnur worked on the research part of the study on the project "Prevention in aquaculture" and she graduated with a master's degree from the Faculty of Natural Resources at the University of Akureyri last June

On Tuesday 3 October, Runólfur Guðmundsson will defend his master's project, ,,Decision-making and optimization in the fisheries sector”. The defense takes place in the premises of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Iceland (VRII), Hjarðarhagi 6, room V-158 and starts at 13.45. 

The master's project is part of the project ,,Cod catch processing forecast"Which has been funded by AVS and the Rannís research fund. The aim of the master's project was to analyze data that has been collected recently. 5 years on fillet utilization, ringworm and release and show how the knowledge that has been created can be used to increase the profits of fisheries companies. In his project, Runólfur developed an optimization model for decision-making in shipping companies and shows how this type of data and methodology can be used in the management of fisheries companies.

Runólf's supervisors were Páll Jensson, professor at the Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Iceland, Sigurjón Arason, associate professor at the Faculty of Science and Sveinn Margeirsson, doctoral student at the University of Iceland and DTU. Examiner is Snjólfur Ólafsson, professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Iceland.

Everyone is welcome!

On 21-22 September, a meeting of the European project was held at IFL Chill-on, which is a large integrated project that started this summer. The project is funded by the EU and the grant amounts to a total of 9.8 million Euros and its total scope is about 15.1 m. Euro or about 1.4 billion Icelandic kronas.

IFL manages one of the four main research pillars of the Chill-on project as well as being involved in other aspects of its work. The meeting at IFL was part of the research group led by IFL and discusses refrigeration technology and the transport of sensitive foods such as fresh fish and how to increase the safety and quality of products with new technology.

Á website of the project states that the European Union's market area is the second largest market in the world for fresh and frozen foods and that trade in chilled and frozen foods increases by more than 10% per year. It also states that fish is in third place among the most consumed foods in Europe and due to the fragility of fresh fish, it has been decided to investigate everything related to quality and traceability in the supply chain and transport with chilled and frozen fish in the project. .

IFL's research in the project is mostly about fish products and methods to increase their shelf life and safety, but collaborative projects of this size open up various new possibilities and knowledge flows to Iceland.

The Chill-on project will also work on the development of the same elements for chicken products and the supply routes of such products to Europe. In this connection, it may be mentioned that from Brazil, for example, about 250 thousand tons of chicken breasts are exported annually to European markets. The Chill-on project includes a total of 24 participants from Europe and distant countries, such as China, South America, but participants in the meeting in Reykjavík, in addition to IFL researchers, came from Israel, Turkey, Spain, and Germany.

The project manager in Chill-on on behalf of IFL is dr. Sigurður Bogason:

Information about the project can be obtained from Matís, matis@matis.is 

Last week, a two-day meeting was held here at IFL in one part of the SEAFOODplus cluster project. This is the Seabac project, which is one of four categories that fall under the third pillar (3rd pill) of Sfplus.

Seabac's full name is Seafood: Enhanced assessment of bacterial associated contamination and its project manager is dr. Rachel Rangdale from The Center for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in the UK.

According to Sigrún Guðmundsdóttir, who works on this project on behalf of IFL and organized the meeting here in Reykjavík, it was a regular project meeting. "We are working on developing methods to find pathogens Vibrio spp. in shellfish. We use both PCR methods and so-called "hybridization" methods, "she says. Sigrún says that work is also underway to develop a PFGE method for comparing relationships V. parahaemolyticus strains that have been found.  

The meeting was attended by participants from the UK, France, Italy, Portugal and Iceland. A participant from Spain was not able to attend the meeting.

The Fisheries Research Institute (IFL) is looking for people to take part in consumer surveys of fish. The surveys will be conducted in mid-October and will run until November next year.

There are two surveys:

1) a survey that takes place at IFL on Thursday 19 October and people, 18 years and older, are requested to come to us at Skúlagata 4 that day and taste fish,

2) a survey where people bring fish home for cooking a total of 6 times over a 6-week period (every Tuesday) from October 17 to November 21. Here we are looking for families, where at least 2 are 18 years or older.

Further information and registration of participation:

fisk@rf.is  and by phone: 530 8667

Two employees started working at IFL earlier this month, one in Reykjavík and the other in Höfn in Hornafjörður. Björn Þorgilsson will work at the Environment and Quality Department of IFL Research and Guðmundur Heiðar Gunnarsson at Höfn in Hornafjörður.

Björn Þorgilsson will mainly work on databases and risk assessment in the Environment and Quality Division of the IFL Research Division. He completed his M.Sc. degree in Toxicology from the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA in 2000. For the last four years, Björn was an employee of the Marine Research Institute and worked at the Laboratory of Stock Genetics, Keldnaholt.

Guðmundur Heiðar Gunnarsson is an employee at IFL's new office in Höfn in Hornafjörður. This is another of IFL's new offices, but earlier this year IFL's office in Sauðárkrókur was opened and IFL now operates in six locations in the country, outside Reykjavík. Guðmundur is a biochemist by education, took a BS degree in biochemistry at the University of Iceland in 1997 and will soon finish his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland. Guðmundur has facilities in New worlds, Little Bridge 2 in Höfn, a magnificent building that was inaugurated in 2002 and houses various activities. 

Friday 22 September Rannís stands for sk Science Week - - Dating with scientists at the Reykjavík Art Museum at Tryggvagata. IFL will be involved and will present how the senses can be used in science.

As stated Rannís website The aim of Science Week is to arouse public interest in science and increase awareness of the work of scientists and their importance.

As previously stated, the Science Week will be held on Friday 22 September and will start at 18 - 21. The science week will have a similar format as last year, when scientists from companies, research institutes and universities took part and about 700 guests came to visit.

During the Science Week, emphasis will be placed on putting the scientist himself in the foreground by making the scientists visible and accessible to the public. During the vigil, scientists will have the opportunity to present their research and results in an easy-to-understand and entertaining way, as the Science Week should appeal to the general public, both young and old.

The title of IFL's presentation will be "The senses as a measuring instrument in science" and will be introduced there, among other things sky food, but in sensory evaluation are the senses of man, viz. visual, olfactory, taste, hearing and touch senses used to assess food quality. A project that IFL has worked on in collaboration with other parties will also be presented Attitudes and fish consumption of young people: Improving the image of seafood.

Vísindavökun is free and admission is open to everyone and there is reason to encourage people to visit the Reykjavík Art Museum next Friday night.

IFL has secured the purchase of equipment that is hoped to open up the possibility of new research projects, both domestic and foreign. The aim is to build a new research division at IFL around the equipment, and a foreign expert has been hired to lead that work.

There are two new devices, namely the Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) device and the Hydraulic Analyzer (HPLC) that can be used separately. The ICP-MS instrument will be used, among other things, to measure inorganic trace elements and the instrument has various advantages over older methods, such as measuring atomic absorption (AA) with a flame device and graphite furnace. The new device offers a much faster method when looking at many substances in each sample, and with this method the detection limits of the trace elements are generally much lower than with older methods.  

The hydraulic manifold (HPLC) can be connected to the front of the ICP-MS instrument and the HPLC-ICP-MS instrument assembly is installed.

According to Helgi Gunnlaugsdóttir, head of the IFL Research Division, the goal is to build a new research field within inorganic trace element analysis, which involves research and measurements of the form analysis of different chemical forms of metals in food, and HPLC-ICP-MS technology will be used in this research. The reason why the form analysis of metals is considered a special field of research is that different chemical forms of metals have different toxicity. What is driving the progress in this area of trace element analysis is related to the authorities' concern about the toxicity of certain chemical forms of metals in food and their impact on human health.

Last March, a specialist was hired, Dr Ernst Schmeisser from Austria, and he will lead the development of this new research area at IFL. Dr. Schmeisser has previously performed diagnostics of, for example, arsenic by HPLC-ICP-MS in organic samples.

Read more about the ICP-MS device here

Today, the establishment of a new limited company, Matís ohf, was announced, which will merge three government agencies, the Fisheries Research Institute, the Keldnaholt Food Research Institute (MATRA) and finally the Environment Agency's Laboratory. This is reported on the website of the Ministry of Fisheries.