Chapter 15 - Implementation of foodomics in the food industry

Abstract

In the past few years research in food and nutrition sciences has moved from classical analytical methods to very sophisticated omics approaches that create an impressive amount of data. The latest can only be analyzed using bioinformatics tools. Work published so far has shown the power of omic technologies in the field of foodomics. Most of the studies carried out so far used one or two approaches such as transcriptomics and metabolomics, and a major challenge is integrating and connecting data sets from different expression levels such as gene, transcript, protein, and metabolite. However, developments still have to be done to transfer this approach used mainly in research laboratories to the industrial world. Most of the techniques involved in foodomics approaches are complex, costly, and need highly trained people to obtain robust data. Teams working in this field must be composed of people having complementary skills in chemistry, analysis, statistics, biology, and bioinformatics. Governments of different countries have developed large “omics” centers, sometimes using joint ventures with private industries. Other private companies have invested money and provide services to laboratories of the public sector. Initiatives of sharing databases and bioinformatics tools have also been proposed. Consequently, one way to innovate in this field would be by having closer collaborations between the academic world and industry.