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Food Summit

2005: Making sense of food

2004: Diet and the metabolic syndrome

2003: Mining food microbes

2002: Texture Dynamics

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WCFS Food Summit 2003: Mining food microbes; from data to knowledge

  

A very successful Food Summit was held December 10-12, 2003, at the Wageningse Berg, Wageningen. This meeting was attended by a group of approximately 75 experts from industry, institutes and academia. Eleven lectures were presented by renowned international experts, and a special Bioinformatics "live" session was held to demonstrate novel software tools. All participants contributed to lively discussions leading to some consensus recommendations for future research.

December 10-12, 2003, Wageningse Berg, Wageningen, the Netherlands

The exponentially growing information of microbial genome sequences, and the high throughput analysis of expression products and metabolites, are recent developments that will affect food sciences in a profound and unprecedented way. Vast amounts of data are being generated from (genomics) experiments of industrial microorganisms, and the questions arise:

  • How do we organise and integrate this data flow ?

  • Which computational tools do we need to analyze this data ?

  • How do we translate data to knowledge ?


There is no doubt that computational biology and bioinformatics are central to tackle these questions. The disciplines span a process that begins with data collection, analysis, classification and integration, and ends with data mining, interpretation, modeling, visualization and prediction. The fundamental challenges are to describe, analyze, simulate and predict the dynamics of life processes.

This Food Summit addressed these issues in a series of sessions, including plenary lectures and strategic discussions. Topics included:
  1. Microbial Diversity

    • Strain diversity and selection

    • Comparative functional genomics

    • Metagenomics - metaproteomics


  2. Metabolic reconstruction

    • Metabolic potential

    • Systems biology

    • Comparative metabolomics


  3. Microbial Functionality

      4. Host-microbe interactions
    • Food safety

    • Functional fermentations


The plenary lectures and the Bioinformatics demonstration session stimulated lively discussions, moderated by the Programme 3 Focal Points, and led to recommendations and suggestions on how to harness the explosion in Omics data, and how these developments could contribute to the design, production, and marketing of healthy, functional and safe foods.

Plenary lectures were given by:


Douglas Kell, Manchester UK

Rapid and Explanatory Analysis of Complex Biological Systems Using Metabolomics and Machine Learning

Steve Oliver, Manchester UK

From Sequence to Function: Lessons from Yeast

Oscar Kuipers, RUG, Groningen NL

Functional Genomics of Gram-Positive Bacteria

Sef Heijnen, TU Delft NL

Dynamic Metabolomics

Ross Overbeek, FIG, USA

Comparative Analysis: the Key to Extracting Insights from Genomic Data

Michael Müller, Wageningen NL

Nutrigenomics: from Molecular Nutrition to Prevention of Disease

Jan van de Greef, TNO Leiden, NL

Data Integration in Systems Biology

Bas Teusink, WCFS, NL

Reconstruction and modeling of the metabolic network of Lactobacillus plantarum

Christophe Schilling, Genomatica Inc, San Diego USA

Bringing Genomes to Life: Use of genome scale in silico models

Philippe Glaser, Pasteur Institute, Paris F

Listeria Genomics

Roel Bovenberg, DSM, Delft NL

Industrial Approaches towards Systems Biology

Presentations in the Bioinformatics Demonstration session:

BioASP - Bioinformatics Application Service Provider

Karin van Haren
Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Nijmegen
www.bioasp.nl

The Microbial Genome Viewer

Robert Kerkhoven
Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Nijmegen
www.cmbi.kun.nl/MGV

MotifDB: a database and tool for the analysis of regulatory elements

Douwe Molenaar
NIZO food research, Ede

ERGO Bioinformatics Suite

Jos Boekhorst
Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Nijmegen
www.integratedgenomics.com/ergofaqs.html

LacplantCyc: A Pathway/Genome Database for Lactobacillus plantarum

WCFS1
Frank H.J. van Enckevort
NIZO food research, Ede

SimPhenyTM: Product Overview and Demonstration

Christophe H. Schilling
Genomatica, Inc., San Diego, USA

Organising Committee

Prof. Dr. Roland J. Siezen, Prof. Dr. Willem M. de Vos, Dr. Bas Teusink, Dr. Frank van Enckevort, Dr. Douwe Molenaar, Drs. Michiel Wels, Corine Beemster, Rianne Hermus 		 

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