By Stewart C. Ocampo

Sharing his expertise on probiotics and food innovation, Dr. Anil K. Anal, a professor of the Asian Institute of Technology - Thailand, cascaded current trends in probiotics research today, February 9, at the Center for Flexible Learning.

Dr. Anal, who was invited by MMSU to be its research supervisor, discussed how probiotics serve as functional components in fermented foods, including its benefits, criteria, and characterization. He explained, “probiotics in traditional fermented foods are emerging sources of biotherapy and functional foods.”

He also added, “not only food and beverage products can be incorporated with probiotic, but cosmetic products as well.”

His lecture is still part of the three-day Indigenous Food Plants (IFP) Forum being hosted by the Mariano Marcos State University, which is an initiative of the MMSU-led Indigenous Food Research Consortium. It was attended by faculty researchers from the departments of pharmacy, food technology, biology and industrial technology of MMSU, along with project teams from the Ilocos Sur Polytechnic State College in Ilocos Sur and Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union were present today.

Also today, MMSU President and program leader Shirley C. Agrupis presented the research program roadmap of the IFP project. She stated the first year (2023) of the project will focus on providing researchers opportunities for immersion and hands-on training; second year (2024) on the scale up production of probiotic strains; and, the third year (2025) on the development of probiotic products from IFP.

The project aims to strengthen state universities and colleges’ institutional science, technology, and innovation capacity for probiotic food systems, as well as to develop an integrated production system of probiotic products from IFPs.

A signing of the memorandum of agreement between participating SUCs and partner agencies is also expected soon. (HLY/JVBT, StratCom)