Foodomics: New Approaches to Evaluate Food Quality

Dear Colleagues,

The 6th edition of the International Conference on FoodOmics will be held in Cesena (Italy) on 14–16 October 2020. In recent years, food science has aimed to develop new food products, improving different process technologies and focusing the attention on the changes of sensory quality during the shelf-life of foods. Further, both food chemistry and food microbiology have taken great advantage of the developments of new analytical platforms, such as those based on “foodomics”. Foodomics was defined in 2009 as “a discipline that studies the Food and Nutrition domains through the application and integration of advanced -omics technologies to improve consumer's well-being, health, and knowledge”. In the foodomics field, researchers working in different aspects of food science, such as food chemistry, analytical chemistry, biochemistry, food microbiology, and food technology, can finally work together in order to reach the main and common objective, i.e., the optimization of new functional foods and/or nutraceuticals to improve human health. Foodomics, as a new emerging research tool, has opened up new frontiers and possibilities for scientists to characterize and simultaneously determine the comprehensive profile of the food metabolome. Such knowledge could be very helpful in providing a comprehensive understanding on the effects of different technological processes (such as cooking and/or fermentation) and probably to predict the sensory, nutritional, functionality, and nutraceutical quality of the final product. The study of foodomics came under the spotlight after it was introduced at the first international conference in 2009 in Cesena, Italy. Since 2009, many experts have been meeting regularly to find new approaches and possibilities in the areas of food science and technology and human nutrition.

This year, the Conference focuses on four different topics:

• Food safety, an important issue where omics technologies coupled with statistical and bioinformatics tools can offer solutions. On the one hand, the use of multi-omics technologies will improve the understanding of allergenicity, on the other it will enable the identification of food allergens. In addition, in the last several years a new approach has revolutionized traditional toxicology.  At the core of this new strategy, termed systems toxicology, are the “omics” techniques;
• Enginomics, a cutting-edge science that harmonizes food processing and human digestion in a holistic way using new technologies for modelling and simulating the main human metabolic processes.  Exploring human digestive processes using big data and food engineering support will contribute to an improved production of food for the future.
• Exposomics, the new science that analyses the human response to exposure to diet/lifestyle/environmental factors through innovative omics technologies. The use of omics analyses provides high-throughput exposomics datasets that can help develop an unbiased understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic diseases in the context of industrialization, drastic lifestyle changes, urbanization, and pollution.
• Feedomics, an emerging field in animal research that, like foodomics, integrates a range of omics technologies.  This approach can help in elucidating the complex interactions among feed, environment, genetics, physiology, and the symbiotic microbiota, with the final aim of improving overall animal welfare and health, productivity, and product quality.

• Targeted/untargeted metabolomics
• Proteomics
• Lipidomics
• Volatile compounds
• Shelf-life
• Sensorial characteristics
• Spectroscopic analysis