![[Dept. of Food Science]](http://njaes.rutgers.edu/_common/images/subheads/foodscience.gif "[Dept. of Food Science]"){kind=small}
Research Interests and Accomplishments
Dr. Ho's research has revolved around three major areas in flavor chemistry -- identification of specific compounds in processed foods, advancing the understanding of Maillard chemistry, and the search for natural antioxidants for flavor stability improvement. In his early career, he concentrated on the identification and quantification of flavor compounds in baked potatoes, french fried potatoes, roasted peanuts, roasted beef, roasted cocoa butter and fried chicken. 
This pioneering work included the identification of many long chain alkyl-substituted pyrazines, thiazoles and oxazoles in french fried potatoes and fried chicken. This work led to a new area of research in flavor chemistry, namely, interactions of Maillard reactions and lipids. He established the mechanisms for the formation of these long chain alkyl-substituted heterocyclic compounds. Later on, Dr. Ho and other flavor chemists proved that the interactions of Maillard reactions and lipids are important in controlling flavor development in lipid-containing foods.
His more recent works on the identification of sulfur-containing compounds in Allium vegetables such as garlic, scallion and Welsh onions led to the identification of many novel flavor compounds. One of the notable advances in this area was his establishment of the understanding in Maillard chemistry of alliin, the unique sulfur-containing amino acid in garlic.
Dr. Ho is credited with significant contributions in the flavor chemistry of Maillard reactions. His research on the role of cysteine and cystine in Maillard reactions led to the identification of many sulfur-containing compounds with extremely low aroma thresholds important to the flavor of meat products. He was the first to demonstrate the importance of protein deamidation to the flavor development in glutamine and asparagine-rich foods. He established, through mechanistic study that the ammonia released from the deamidation of glutamine and asparagine strongly modulates the flavor profiles of the Maillard reaction. Dr. Ho is also one of the pioneers in demonstrating the effect of water activity and pH on Maillard flavor generation.
His research on natural antioxidant discovery has led to the identification of many novel compounds in tea, rosemary, sage, thyme and other medicinal herbs that have strong antioxidative and anticarcinogenic properties. Together with his colleagues at the Cancer Research Laboratory at Rutgers University, they are the first to demonstrate that the antioxidant components isolated from rosemary and green tea have potent anticancer properties in cell and animal models.
