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Ordesa R&D&i center team. Photo: Ordesa.
 21.04.2015

Ordesa leads the Smartfoods project

The Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) has granted the Smartfoods industrial research project for the development of smart food to a consortium of companies led by Ordesa from this R&D&i center at Parc Científic de Barcelona.The aim of this research is the design of foods and screening tests that will help reduce the risk of some of the most frequently occurring diseases that will cause 3 of every 4 deaths in 2020.

Under the coordination of Ordesa, the following companies will take part in the project Alimentómica, Andrés Pintaluba, Angulas Aguinaga, Biópolis, Grupo Siro and Nutrafur. Other participating companies include 23 public research organizations from different Autonomous Communities and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), universities, technology centers and hospitals.

Smartfoods will study which ingredients should be added to a balanced diet to prevent or enhance the body´s resistance against particular diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.The main innovation of this project is to try to combine into the same food different bioactive ingredients with functional properties beneficial to the health, which act simultaneously on different targets involved in the same pathological condition.

Of note in the project will be the use of the latest technologies to assess the interaction between nutrients and genes, which will make it possible to combine the concept of smart foods with personalized nutrition, by performing several preclinical and clinical trials to validate the functionalities.

“The project Smartfoods represents a significant boost to research and innovation of the company and will be key to the development of new products for pediatric nutrition and new food supplements in the coming years,” said Maria Rodriguez, Preclinical Research Director’s R&D&i center located at the PCB.

“Research will primarily be conducted in the areas of probiotics, prebiotics, bioactive peptides and structured lipids. Other areas of study will include in vitro and in vivo animal models studies and clinical trials using various omics sciences (metabolomics, transcriptomics and metagenomics) that will allow us to fain further insight into the action mechanisms of the ingredients studied. The final objective is to develop new products based on these ingredients that continue to place the company in the forefront of new research on pediatric nutrition and new food supplements,” explains researcher José A. Moreno, coordinator at Smartfoods.

Smartfoods, endowed with a budget of 11.6 million euros over the next four years, is part of the call of the Strategic Program of the Consortia of National Business Research (CIEN), which funds major industrial research and experimental development programs aimed at research in future strategic areas with international projection.