Skip to content

‘ROS’ Workshop 2023

Join five world experts from engineering, biology, and medicine as they share their insights on the challenges and solutions in scaling up, analyzing and navigating regulatory for milk extracellular vesicles and microRNAs.

May 8, 2023

8 AM - 11 AM PDT

2023 IMGC ROS Workshop

Logistics:

  • Participation is complimentary but requires registration
  • The workshop will be recorded and available to view on this page in June 2023 (TBD)

TITLE: Lactoferrin development: potential growing pains unraveled

ABSTRACT:
Breastfeeding is the optimal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. Furthermore, breastfeeding helps to reduce the risk and severity of many diseases in infancy and beyond. However, not every mother is able to breastfeed. In these cases, infant nutrition based on bovine milk proves to be a good alternative. FrieslandCampina develops products with health benefits originating from milk for infant nutrition applications. One of these products is lactoferrin: a whey protein present in milk, having an average concentration of 2-4 mg/ml in human milk, while in bovine milk, the concentration is about 10 times lower. Lactoferrin is a bioactive protein that binds iron, and it is known to inhibit bacterial growth by successfully competing for iron with pathogens. FrieslandCampina started lactoferrin production in the 1990’s. To support the growing demand for lactoferrin, the company is developing a new, more efficient process to extract lactoferrin from bovine milk. To ensure a high-quality protein is produced, many technical and legislative challenges needed to be tackled. This presentation will take you on FrieslandCampina’s journey to develop the new lactoferrin production process from lab ideation, and pilot-scale production towards commercialization including the hurdles that were tackled to achieve success.

Roeland van Eerten is educated as a food technologist (M.Sc) and has years of experience in the infant nutrition business. He began his career in 2010 at Danone/Nutricia as a product developer for infant formulas. There he worked his way through the company becoming an expert in recipe formulation with a love for dairy. In 2019, Roeland joined FrieslandCampina ingredients for Early Life Nutrition to improve and develop new ingredients for infant nutrition market. In this role, he is responsible for projects from ideation to market launch. Essential within this role is to develop or fine-tune raw material and production processes to meet the requirements of all aspects, which are relevant for the end-consumer such as taste, composition, and packaging. Additionally, Roeland overcame many technical and legislative challenges throughout the project’s lifespan. 

TITLE: Building a framework to evaluate the safety of recombinant proteins

ABSTRACT:
Milk proteins, especially those found in human milk, can be bioactive and exert multifunctional properties to support human health. To successfully incorporate these proteins into our food supply, we must develop safe, sustainable, and commercially viable technologies to produce the proteins for mass markets. The crux of the challenge is to establish a trusted and reproducible framework that industry players can use to reliably evaluate the safety of recombinant proteins. The greater scientific community can work together along with regulators to establish best practices for establishing the safety of such novel ingredients. In this presentation, we will discuss the research and development, analytical tools, and manufacturing options for novel recombinant proteins. We will then review the challenges and potential solutions to establish a framework to evaluate their safety for human consumption. 

After discovering an early interest in food science, Laura pursued a Bachelor’s Degree in Food Science and Technology at Western University, as well as a Master’s in Food Studies at New York University. Upon graduating, Laura began consulting on a range of projects, formulating and developing a variety of food products at companies including SIMULATE, Plated, Dylan’s and Candy Bar, and in January of 2019 founded Helaina. Helaina is disrupting the infant nutrition industry, which has remained largely unchanged for decades, by being the first company to replicate immune-equivalent human proteins in food. Laura has created the technology to improve the health outcomes in formula-fed infants and in the future, plans to expand the use of its proteins in a variety of consumer products.

TITLENavigating regulatory for dietary bioactive peptides and their health claims

ABSTRACT:
Some peptides which are encrypted in the sequences of food proteins and released during digestion are believed to be active on different biological functions or diseases, including gut physiology, nutrient bioavailability, immune functions and defences, neurological functions and stress, blood pressure and circulation, metabolic risk factors (obesity, diabetes, lipid metabolism), cardiovascular diseases, bone and dental health, or cancer. To evaluate if these dietary bioactive peptides, that could play a key role in improving health, can meet the criteria for Health Claims, defined by international authorities (EFSA, FDA). Such Claims relate to food components and their effects on nutritional intake, improvement of physiological functions, or prevention of pathologies. The sequence and activity of bioactive peptides were extensively reviewed. The conditions for health claims are that i) foods bearing the claim must be precisely described and reproducible; (ii) the targeted functions or effects must represent a benefit for the consumer and be measurable; (iii) the alleviated effects must be demonstrated in human on the target population. Many studies involved dairy peptides, but the properties of vegetal, animal, and sea products were also assessed. Most of the allegations are based on in vitro experiments or in animal models and fewer reports assessed and/or confirmed bioactive peptides activity in humans. Few bioactive peptides currently meet the criteria required by regulatory authorities for obtaining a health claim. In many cases, a major limitation is the lack of a convincing clinical studies conducted according to the rules of good clinical practice.

Professor Daniel Tomé belonged to the Paris Institute of technology for life, food, and environmental sciences, within Paris-Saclay University (Paris, France). Along his career he has been involved by over more than 40 years in several research and education issues related to Nutrition and Human health. The research he conducted contributed to a better understanding of the metabolism and nutritional needs related to energy, protein, and amino acid. Important results were obtained on nutritional efficiency of dietary proteins as indispensable component of the diet to support protein synthesis, amino acid-related metabolic pathways, and energy expenditure. This research also contributed to better understand how protein intake, which is essential for survival, is tightly controlled and can even be fulfilled in priority to energy intake to ensure protein and amino acid sufficiency and an adequate protein status. These studies led to identify different endocrine, metabolic, metabolomic and transcriptomic signatures and biomarkers of protein and amino acid efficacy, sufficiency, and requirement. Prof. Tomé’s is among the international experts for protein requirement and protein quality in food and diets. He significantly contribute to expertise in Nutrition and Health for national and international authorities and stakeholder.

Co-Speakers

TITLEBuilding a bridge from past into the future for food ingredient commercialization: the story of osteopontin

ABSTRACT:
Pure osteopontin is one of the most advanced whey protein products to date. This talk presents some learnings from the long development process, which may facilitate future developments of advanced, health promoting food ingredients. The development took its start in a research hypothesis. Research and process development was added and followed by analytical, regulatory and commercial efforts and decisions. The development period was further complicated by changes in the market and the regulatory framework. By analyzing the approach taken and the complications experienced during the development process insights can be gained on the importance of speed to market, importance of IP protection and selection of scientific focus. Looking back at the path we travelled to the present commercial success may teach us important lessons on how to work smarter to improve our ability to bring science findings into practical and commercial solutions.

With a background in dairy protein chemistry Anne Staudt Kvistgaard has worked close to 20 years in the space of developing, documenting and commercializing ingredients into the infant formula industry. Anne Staudt Kvistgaard continuous focus has been driving the positioning of AFI’s strategic ingredients into the early life nutrition segment. Through this work Anne Staudt Kvistgaard has engaged into both pre-and clinical studies securing safety and efficacy documentation of AFI’s infant ingredients.

Email: ASKV@ARLAFOODS.COM

 

TITLEBuilding a bridge from past into the future for food ingredient commercialization: the story of osteopontin

ABSTRACT
Pure osteopontin is one of the most advanced whey protein products to date. This talk presents some learnings from the long development process, which may facilitate future developments of advanced, health promoting food ingredients. The development took its start in a research hypothesis. Research and process development was added and followed by analytical, regulatory and commercial efforts and decisions. The development period was further complicated by changes in the market and the regulatory framework. By analyzing the approach taken and the complications experienced during the development process insights can be gained on the importance of speed to market, importance of IP protection and selection of scientific focus. Looking back at the path we travelled to the present commercial success may teach us important lessons on how to work smarter to improve our ability to bring science findings into practical and commercial solutions.

Dr. Wejse attended his first IMGC Symposium in 2013 and was a member of the local planning committee in 2014 and 2019. Dr. Wejse became the Head of Open Innovation, Universities & Consortia of the dairy cooperative Arla Foods amba, Sept. 2018 based on 14 years of experience in leading technology transfer and scientific collaboration between universities and industry. In this role he accelerates Arla’s innovation agenda through strong innovation networks with private and public research organizations across the world. Dr. Wejse holds a master of science followed by a PhD in Microbial Ecology and Protein Chemistry. Starting from enzymology his carrier has moved through bioactivity of proteins towards nutrition and human health. Building on broad knowledge within science and great network with the academic world his current role supports all aspects of application of science through academic collaborations. Dr. Wejse has also played a key role in Arla Food for Health where he was part of the Steering Committee for several years and currently covers the director position. Arla Food for Health is a PPP also including University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University and Arla Foods Ingredients having the vision of discovering the health effects of dairy and dairy ingredients. He has been deeply involved in shaping the scientific direction for the center and engaged and built very good relationships with the universities.

His bibliography is publicly available. Email: peter.l.wejse@arlafoods.com