Genomics Will Revolutionise the Global Food Market
17 June, 2004
Exciting new gene technology is about to revolutionise the global functional foods market, an international food conference in Dublin was told.
A leading US food scientist told the conference that probiotic bacteria incorporated into food can confer a range of health benefits. However lack of knowledge on how probiotics work is a source of controversy between scientists, the medical profession and the food industry.
Professor Daniel O’Sullivan of the University of Minnesota said genomics can provide the evidence needed to support probiotic health claims and reveal their true value.
“Probiotics are live bacteria which, when ingested in large amounts, confer a range of health benefits such as reduction in infections and allergy-based diseases.”
“The technology now exists to scrutinise the tiny worlds of these gut-friendly bugs and dismantle their genetic material. Special DNA microchips are used to tell which genes are switched ‘on’ or ‘off’ depending on the conditions encountered by the bacteria as they pass through the digestive system,” he said.
Professor O’Sullivan said probiotic research to date has been criticised for depending more on mystique than science. However, genomics has the capacity to reveal the true value of these beneficial bacteria. Research by food scientists in Teagasc and elsewhere has already shown that many food products, such as yoghurt and cheese, are ideal carriers of probiotics.
Professor O’Sullivan said that the new technology has the capacity to separate science from fringe medicine and folk remedies.
The two-day conference, ‘Thinking about Tomorrow’, is organised by Teagasc in association with the Department of Agriculture and Food, UCD and UCC. It is being held as part of Ireland’s Presidency of the EU and is being attended by 300 scientists and food industry representatives from Europe and the US.
