Abstract:

The growing population of the world and its appetite for consumption of animal-derived foods is driving increases in livestock production which are not sustainable. Building on advances in plant science, biotechnology and tissue engineering, the food industry is now producing many different types of alternative proteins, often using new methods of production such as precision fermentation. As with any technological advances, assuring the safety of products manufactured using new technologies is crucial both to ensure the health and well-being of consumers and supporting their trust in such products. Proteins produced in “cellular agriculture” using microbes, microalgae, and mammalian cell culture, employ closed systems for production, so conventional quality control and management systems can be employed to reduce the risks posed by potential chemical and microbiological hazards. This spans the choice of host organisms, or isolation and banking of cells used in cultured meat production, to effective raw material selection and testing across the entire production process from media to scaffolds. However, these new production methods also present novel safety concerns, one particular focus being their allergenic potential. Allergenicity risk assessment focuses on both protecting the existing allergic population and preventing the development of new food allergies, taking into consideration both IgE- and non-IgE-mediated adverse reactions. At the outset this requires information on the physicochemical characteristics of the novel proteins and susceptibility to digestion. For example, food proteins produced using precision fermentation should be characterized compared to the conventionally produced counterpart, together with the form and amount of any parts of the host microorganisms that are present in the final food product. This is complemented by bioinformatic analysis and other types of further tests including targeted serum screening using samples from a relevant allergic population. Lastly, it will be important to have analytical tools to ensure safety, authenticity, and traceability, many of which need to be developed alongside the new food products. Solving these problems will require partnership between innovators, safety scientists and consumers to ensure both types of technology realise their potential to contribute to transformation of the food system. 

About our speaker:

Clare Mills is Professor of Food and Molecular Immunology in the School of Bioscience which is part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey and is part of the Respiratory and Allergy Research team at the University of Manchester and the Wythenshawe Hospital. She obtained her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol and after a short spell at the then Glaxo Group Research, moved to the University of Kent to study for a PhD in Biochemistry as a CASE student sponsored by Shell Research. On completing her PhD after a short spell at the Department of Health she moved to the BBSRC Institute of Food Research (now known as the Quadram Institute) where she eventually became an Institute Strategic Programme leader. In 2011 she moved to the University of Manchester and then in 2022 took up a joint appointment with the University of Surrey. 

Through a series of projects funded across several EU Frame Work Programmes she developed a network of researchers spanning 17 countries, including India, China, Russia and Ghana, that went on to form the EuroPrevall consortium. With 63 partners spanning clinical science, epidemiology, social science, biochemical and immunological sciences, academia and industry and €14.3M of funding this was successfully completed at the end of 2009. After moving to the University of Manchester she formed a further partnership which won the €9M, 38 partner, iFAAM project. This sought to exploit much of the knowledge gained in EuroPrevall to develop tools and approaches to enable more effective management of food allergies. other aspects of her research on food allergy include projects funded by the European Union, European Food Safety Authority and the Food Standards Agency on different aspects of food allergen management, analysis and allergenicity risk assessment, including aspects relating to novel foods.  This includes the £1.8 M PAFA project which is discovering how many adults suffer from IgE-mediated food allergies, and investigating risk factors involved in driving IgE-mediated food allergies. 

Professor Mills is a member of the FSA Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes and was involved in the recent FAO-WHO Ad Hoc Expert Consultation on Food Allergens and has more than 200 refereed publications.