{"id":377907,"date":"2026-03-10T15:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/377907\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T15:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:56:12","slug":"ucsd-launches-milk-analytics-core-for-deep-molecular-phenotyping-of-human-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/377907\/","title":{"rendered":"UCSD launches Milk Analytics Core for deep molecular phenotyping of human milk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">\u201cBelieve it or not, we still don\u2019t know exactly what is in human milk,\u201d Dr. Lars Bode, director of the Human Milk Institute, told NutraIngredients. \u201cThere\u2019s probably still a bunch of components that we don\u2019t even know that they\u2019re in there, and then there are a lot of components that we know they\u2019re there, but we don\u2019t know what they do. And that\u2019s really a blind spot that we\u2019re trying to close to understand what these molecules are, and eventually, what do they do for the infant, for mom, and can we also explore that to develop new solutions for people of all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">The new <a href=\"https:\/\/hmi.ucsd.edu\/analytics-core\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Milk Analytics Core (MAC)<\/a> is designed to close those knowledge gaps by bringing advanced analytics into one coordinated research pipeline. The MAC will investigate the bioactive molecules in milk that influence immune development, long-term disease risk and maternal health, positioning milk as a source of therapeutic discovery, not just calories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">There has been growing interest in the human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) in breastmilk as potent prebiotics that help kick-start an infants microbiome and may offer benefits throughout the lifespan, but Dr. Bode noted that there are many other things in human milk, including bioactive lipids, bioactive proteins, peptides and so on. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">\u201cAnd then, of course, a lot of things that we don\u2019t name yet because we don\u2019t know that they exist,\u201d he said. \u201cI really see that as a discovery tool but also as an innovation tool where you can identify new components, new ingredients, potentially to really deliver to all kinds of platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Discovery <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">Looking at the potential of human milk for lifelong health, Dr. Bode noted that by understanding the different components and what they do to the baby, and then drilling into how they work on a deep molecular level could allow us to apply these beneficial components in other areas and for other age groups. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">\u201cFor example, we have a project on a specific oligosaccharide that could potentially treat cardiovascular disease,\u201d he said. \u201cYou would potentially have something that certainly is safe, because we give it to babies every two to three hours for the first few months of life, and we know it\u2019s efficacious. Can we use that as a new therapeutic to prevent or treat cardiovascular disease\u2014heart attack and stroke, major killers currently in the world. And can you extend this to cancer, diabetes, all kinds of major diseases we\u2019re thinking of? There might be a solution in human milk. We just haven\u2019t discovered it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">Dr. Bode highlighted that one area that offers fascinating potential active nutrition and human performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">\u201cThat\u2019s what human milk is doing for the baby, right? Helping the baby to grow a lot of muscles, grow a lot of tissues, recover, all those kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, there is a huge potential for having these molecules and applying them in the sports nutrition field as well in performance enhancing applications in general, and this could be good for the athlete. This could be good for the everyday person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">The MAC was established through support from the University of California San Diego, the Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence (MOMI CORE), endowed by the Family Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation, as well as the NIH\/NICHD MPRINT Center of Excellence in Therapeutics at UC San Diego. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body-skinny\">Watch the video for the full interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBelieve it or not, we still don\u2019t know exactly what is in human milk,\u201d Dr. Lars Bode, director&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[5675,173919,28925,17889,2591,18,135,789,19,27130,17,130,173920,9870,173921,15697,432,173922,101514,43779,1294,2579],"class_list":["post-377907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-accident","tag-baby-bottle","tag-breast-milk","tag-childcare","tag-color","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-horizontal","tag-ie","tag-indoors","tag-ireland","tag-london","tag-messy","tag-nobody","tag-one-object","tag-parenthood","tag-photography","tag-spilling","tag-still-life","tag-table","tag-uk","tag-wood"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116205701507939987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}