Product/Service Development

Steven Maranz of David H. Murdock Research Institute in the U.S. proposes to address vitamin A deficiency by using probiotics that biosynthesize carotenoids. Delivered in yogurt, the beneficial microbes will subsequently colonize the digestive tract, where they will manufacture the raw material for the body to convert to vitamin A.

Philip LeDuc of Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. will attempt to increase consumption of native, highly nutritious but underutilized leafy vegetables found in Africa by using mechanical processing of the plant's cells to improve palatability as well as nutrient bioavailability. Using cell mechanics to alter the properties of these crops could lead to improved, low-cost diets for infants and children.

Mary Ann Lila and colleagues at North Carolina University in the U.S. will partner with the University of Zambia to test a new technology that concentrates phytonutrients from locally grown fruits and vegetables into a protein-rich food matrix. The resulting product could provide a low-cost highly stable year-round source of vital nutrients for mothers, infants and children in African communities.

Jacob Godfrey Agea of Makerere University in Uganda proposes to breed Nsenene grasshoppers (Ruspolia Nitidula), which are a rich source of protein, and grind or mill them for use as a flour or additive in other foods such as cereals and grains. These insects could provide a unique source of nutrition for infants and children under the age of five in Eastern Africa.

Ricardo Radulovich of the University of Costa Rica/FUNDEVI in Costa Rica will scale-up sustainable seaweed farming ventures in Costa Rica, characterize nutritional values of various crops, and formulate them into a nutritious seaweed meal that can be marketed as a low-cost stand-alone food or as a supplement.

Kevin Nicholas of Deakin University in Australia will study the milk composition of lactating Australian marsupials (the tammar wallaby) to identify proteins, and then their human equivalents, that promote gut function and stomach development in infants. Such proteins could be developed into a supplement for improved health outcomes for preterm and low birth weight babies.

Loredana Quadro of Rutgers University in the U.S. will engineer strains of bacteria found in the human gut to produce the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene, and test in a mouse model the hypothesis that vitamin A-deficiency could be controlled and healthy growth of children and infant promoted through colonization of the gut by these engineered probiotics.

Kiersten Israel-Ballard of PATH in the U.S., in partnership with University of Washington and Human Milk Banking (HMB) Association of South Africa, will work to develop and test a low-cost, cell-phone-based networked sensing system to provide safety monitoring of low-technology flash- heating pasteurization of breast milk designated for donation. The goal is to scale-up human milk banking for vulnerable infants in resource-limited settings.

Deanna Gibson and Sanjoy Ghosh of the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Canada will test in a mouse model whether modifying the dietary intake of pregnant mothers can lead to the establishment of healthy microflora in an offspring's intestinal tract once they are born. Maternal diets thus could be altered to help bolster the mucosal immune response and reduce susceptibility of disease in infants.

Thomas McDonald of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in the U.S. will work with colleagues to produce an edible algae that produces a colostrum protein to enhance mucosal immunity in infants. The team will test the ability of the algae to prevent infectious diarrheal diseases, a major cause of infant mortality in the developing world.