Industry-academia microbiome pact welcomes Nestlé as latest collaborator

The agreement combines Nestlé’s current work connecting nutrition and the gut microbiome with CMI's microbiome expertise, which counts Danone Nutricia Research and Evonik amongst its industry collaborators.

"The microbiome is an important research area for us,"​ says Isabelle Bureau-Franz, head of Nestlé Research.

"In addition to the continuous development of our innovative products, we are investing in long-term research enabling us to provide the next generation of personalized nutritional solutions adapted to the individual's microbiome."​

HMO studies ​

These personalised nutritional solutions extends to infant nutrition, where Nestlé’s work with Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs), has formed the basis of new infant formulas that include this ingredient.

In the summer, the organisation launched a probiotic solution​​ for lactating mothers to help reduce the risk of breast pain and mastitis and allow them to continue breastfeeding.

Its MATERNA Opti-Lac ​contains a patented unique probiotic strain L. fermentum LC40​, which is naturally found in the breastmilk of healthy mums.

Last year Nestlé launched MATERNA G-Balance​, a new nutritional solution for pregnant women to help prevent gestational diabetes.

“The CMI is glad to have another great company such as Nestlé, joining our group of industry partners to support the rapid growth of microbiome knowledge,”​ adds professor Rob Knight, faculty director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego.

“We can witness a continued acceleration of the application of this field in everyone’s daily life for increased wellness and health.” ​

Corporate partners ​

Along with Nestlé, the CMI counts German specialty chemicals company Evonik as a corporate collaborator having struck a three-year partnership with the CMI to investigate the role of microbiotic cosmetic raw materials in protecting the skin.

Further collaborations include one formed with Danone Nutricia Research at the start of the year, which sees the two parties work on further understanding the connection between the diet and human gut.

Together, CMI and Danone are involved in The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative (THDMI) that will collect human microbiota samples across different countries for mapping the Human Microbiota with a more global population representation and to a higher sequencing resolution.

The Initiative also looks to improve on the collection of the participants’ corresponding diet habits to increase the knowledge of the microbiome’s impact on human health, with an ultimate goal to develop nutritional tailored solutions for a healthy gut.