Laura Righetti

Laura Righetti serves as Assistant Professor in Organic Chemistry at Wageningen University & Research and is a core member of the Team Natural Toxins. Her work bridges analytical chemistry and food safety research with institutional collaborations across European universities including University of Parma and University of Almería.

Her research program centers on natural toxins in food systems, particularly mycotoxins like deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin) produced by Fusarium species. She employs advanced metabolomics and tandem mass spectrometry techniques to analyze contaminants in grains, plant-based foods, and dietary supplements. Key focus areas include food authenticity verification, chemical characterization of wild edible plants, and developing sustainable analytical methods for toxin detection.

Recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward integrating eco-metabolomics with portable mass spectrometry for on-site food safety testing. Her work increasingly addresses emerging challenges in botanical supplement standardization and antibacterial properties of plant compounds, reflecting growing interdisciplinary connections between food chemistry, toxicology, and microbiology.

Dr. Righetti actively mentors doctoral researchers through three ongoing PhD projects: development of portable biotoxin detection systems, toxicological assessment of bee pollen supplements, and identification of novel plant toxins. She also leads the LVVN-funded Pull Down Approach project focused on selective sampling methodologies.

As part of Wageningen's Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, she contributes to the Team Natural Toxins research collective which maintains active collaborations across food safety networks in Europe. Current work includes metagenomic analysis of perennial grain rhizospheres and metabolomic profiling of medicinal plants like Melissa officinalis.