Professor Raymond Coker
+44 (0)1634 88 3199
Ray is Emeritus Professor of Food Safety at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, and owner of Raymond Coker Consulting Limited.
He has been involved with the international management of food & feed safety for over thirty years, specialising in the control of mycotoxins (potent fungal toxins) in food and feed throughout the globe. He has advised a variety of national and international bodies including the Food Standards Agency (UK), EU, Department for International Development, USAID, and UN agencies (including FAO, WHO & IAEA), and has led a variety of international, multidisciplinary projects.
Ray has worked in Europe, South & S E Asia, China, Africa and North & South America.
He founded ToxiMet Limited in 2005, in order to develop simple, affordable, accurate and robust technology (the ToxiMet System) for the accurate measurement of mycotoxins in foods & feeds, throughout the global supply chain.
Ray established a further company, Raymond Coker Consulting Limited, in 2013.
Ray is a natural products chemist who initially studied medicinal plants. Subsequently, he devoted the rest of his career to addressing the occurrence and control of mycotoxins in foods and feeds, throughout global supply chains, including the development of:
- Sampling and sample preparation methods for the production of accurate analytical samples, of a variety of foods and feeds, from small batches to batches of tens of thousands of tonnes.
- Methods (e.g. TLC, HPLC, HPTLC, ELISA, biosensor) for the quantitative analysis of mycotoxins in a wide variety of commodities.
- Surveillance procedures for the accurate evaluation of the mycotoxin contamination of food and feeds in specific regions.
- A commercial process for the detoxification of aflatoxin-contaminated animal feeds.
- Biological methods (e.g. using engineered baker’s yeast) to evaluate the toxicity of a variety of mycotoxins.
- Patented technology (ToxiMet System) for the accurate measurement of mycotoxins, by non-scientists, at factories, warehouses, docksides etc throughout the global supply chain.
- Distributed ledger technology (e.g. blockchain), as a platform for the enhancement of the efficacy of tools employed in the management of food & feed safety systems.
- Patented soil testing technology (Safe Soil Tester) to simply & rapidly detect contaminants on brownfield sites, prior to attempted remediation.
Ray has contributed over one hundred articles to learned journals, books and other specialist publications, as well as attending international conferences in Europe, Asia, Africa, North & South America as an invited lecturer. He has eight granted patents or patent pending.
- Feed Planet (Feed Industry Specialty Magazine), November – December 2018; Mycotoxins – The silent threat to animal health & productivity, and food safety, pp 48 – 54, Parantez Publishing & Congress Ltd. (First of a series of articles.)
- Nicholas W.Turner, Heli Bramhmbhatt, Monika Szabo-Vezse, Alessandro Poma, Raymond Coker, Sergey A.Piletsky (2015). Analytical methods for determination of mycotoxins: An update (2009–2014). Analytica Chimica Acta 901, 12-33.
- Coker, Raymond Douglas (Bromley Kent, GB); Nagler, Martin Jesse (Chatham Kent, GB); Andreou, Michael Paul (Horsham West Sussex, GB) (2013). Apparatus and method for detection and measurement of target compounds such as a food toxin. United States Patent 8,344,334
- Lyne Josse, Xingmin Li, Raymond D. Coker, Campbell W. Gourlay, Ivor H. Evans (2011). Transcriptomic and phenotypic analysis of the effects of T-2 toxin on Saccharomyces cerevisiae: evidence of mitochondrial involvement. FEMS Yeast Research 11(1):133-50
- Coker, Raymond Douglas (Bromley Kent, GB); Nagler, Martin Jesse (Chatham Kent, GB); Andreou, Michael Paul (Horsham West Sussex, GB) (2010). Device for detection and measurement of a target compound such as a food toxin. United States Patent 7,843,566
- Elena Piletska, Kal Karim, Raymond Coker, Sergey Piletsky (2010). Development of custom polymeric materials specific for aflatoxin B1 and ochratoxin A for application with the ToxiQuant T1 sensor tool. Journal of Chromatography A 1217 (16), 2543-2547.
- Xingmin Li, Stefan Millson, Raymond Douglas Coker, Ivor Howell Evans (2009). A sensitive bioassay for the mycotoxin aflatoxin B1, which also responds to the mycotoxins aflatoxin G1 and T-2 toxin, using engineered baker's yeast. Journal of Microbiological Methods 77, Issue 3, 285-291.
- Xingmin Li, Stefan Millson, Raymond Douglas Coker, Ivor Howell Evans (2006). Cloning and expression of Penicillium minioluteum dextranase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its exploitation as a reporter in the detection of mycotoxins. Biotechnol Lett 28: 1955–1964.
- Mamtaz Dawlatana, Raymond Douglas Coker, Martin J Nagler, Christopher P. Wild, Mohammad G. Hassan, Gerald Blunden (2002). The occurrence of mycotoxins in key commodities in Bangladesh: surveillance results from 1993 to 1995. J Nat Toxins 11(4): 379-86.
- Ron L.A.P. Hoogenboom, Th. H. G. Polman, G E Neal, A. J. Verma, C Guyomard, J Tulliez, J P Gautier, Raymond Douglas Coker, M J Nagler, E Heidenreich, J Delort-Laval (2001). Genotoxicity testing of extracts from aflatoxin-contaminated peanut meal, following chemical decontamination. Food Additives and Contaminants 18(4):329-41.
MIoD; FRSA; Emeritus Professor of Food Safety, University of Greenwich.