Biotech food centre could find answers to health problems
Work at the centre could also lead to improvements in general human health and in the livestock sector, such as a remedy for mastitis control without the use of drugs.
Dr Liam Donnelly, head of the Food Research Centre, summarised the objectives, when he said: “Knowledge of the health effects of food constituents is being augmented by an expansion of our knowledge of how each individual is genetically programmed to respond to food. The human genome project provides a platform of information on our genes that is now being harvested to identify specific variants of genes in individuals that determine our susceptibility to food related illnesses. This information will be the basis for personalised nutrition, and opens up a new range of product opportunities and accompanying technological challenges for food companies”.
