Riccardo LoCascio is a second year PhD student in the Microbiology Graduate Group and an active member and fellow of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program. Riccardo's MS is in Agricultural Chemistry from UC Davis and he has a BS in Biochemistry from New York University.

Riccardo's interests are in functional foods and nutraceuticals and his research spans nutrition, chemistry and the life sciences.

Riccardo's current project entails the understanding of how beneficial bacteria in infants intestines interact with complex sugar exclusively found in human breast milk. He utilizes large scale glycomic profiling of fermentations, genomics and gene expression analysis as tools to understanding the relationship between functional components in mothers milk and beneficial microbes in infants.

The aim of Riccardo's work is to ultimately provide novel targets for improving infant formulas and therefore optimizing infant health. He is also interested in the processes driving the development of scientific discoveries into business ventures.