A progress meeting for the CarboKinetics programme was held June 19th. Six project presentation were lively discussed during the on-line event and it could really be concluded that a lot of nice and interesting results have been obtained in the last year of the programme.
The first PhD employed within the CarboKinetics program, Madelon Logtenberg, will defend her thesis September 18th in Wageningen. Madelon collaborated closely with her colleague Renate Akkerman (UMCG) and focused on non-digestible carbohydrates (NDCs), which are commonly applied in cow-milk based infant to resemble the functional properties of human milk oligosaccharides. We are now one step closer to understanding the structure-specific fermentability and immune effects of commonly applied NDCs, such as FOS and native inulin (link to paper: 10.1002/mnfr.202000068), but also of potential NDCs like native and endo-1,3(4)-β-glucanase-treated oat β-glucan (link: 10.3390/nu12061660). The obtained knowledge is highly valuable for the tailoring of mixtures of NDCs to be used in infant formula to meet the needs of infants of different ages and state of inflammation.
