Intelligent Milk Mining

At FHI, milk is the source material from which fractions are extracted with the potential to provide a pipeline of functional ingredients.  It is a valuable and highly complex biological material composed of multiple constituents such as proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. 

The intelligent milk mining platform focuses on the systematic deconstruction of milk to reveal a new range of ingredients with the capacity to positively impact on human health.  It brings together a diversity of expertise in protein chemistry, milk fractionation and separation technologies, as well as microbiology and bioinformatics tools, to provide fractions for delivery to the health pillars (early infant development, metabolic syndrome, infection/immunity, colorectal cancer).  Each of the health pillars is employing sophisticated cell- and 'omics'- based technologies to identify fractions with potential bioactivity and to clarify their mechanism(s) of action.  In parallel with these studies, the milk mining platform merges with the other technology programmes (process scale-up, food formulation) to ensure effective human delivery of the most promising milk-derived bioactives.

The intelligent milk mining platform involves researchers from the four participating research organisations and  is co-ordinated by Dr Nessa Noronha at University College Dublin.