From waste to wellness: Valorizing food by-products to generate health promoting plant extracts targeting gut metabolism.

Summary

It is well established that the gut microbiota plays a central role in shaping human health and maintaining well-being, and that the gut microbiome can be manipulated by targeted dietary interventions. Valorization of food by-products is a pivotal strategy in sustainable food production and waste management. Interestingly, food byproducts represent a copious reservoir of bioactive compounds that can beneficially alter the gut microbiome and can be retrieved via innovative extraction and processing techniques to unlock their nutritional and economic potential. This collaborative project links relevant expertise and capabilities at QIB (UK) and Ain Shams University (Egypt) and seeks to identify food byproduct sources of phytochemicals that can beneficially affect the human gut microbiota and develop sustainable extraction protocols to generate novel ingredients targeting gut (and host) health. The main target will be gut microbial metabolism; effects of extracts on the gut microbiome will be assessed using various in vitro human colon models at QIB, and biotransformation of the polyphenols by the microbiota will also be assessed by combining shotgun metagenomics analysis with metabolome data, hence relationships between the gut microbiome and metabolite changes will be explored. The overall approach will be to identify suitable byproducts and generate extracts (led by ASU), assess their potential to beneficially alter microbial metabolism (QIB) and to generate protocols for efficient extraction and final product preparation. This collaborative project will address several sustainable development goals; valorizing food by-products, reducing food waste, ensuring more efficient use of resources. Besides, the project would pave the way to collaboration with food industry partners for the formulation of products derived from the optimized extracts for promoting human health.

Achievements

List of Publications from the Project

Partners

• Professor Paul Kroon

Project Members

• Shaimaa Fayez Ali Mohamed
• Fadia Salah Youssef
• Nouran Fahmy

Project Leaders