Leibniz-Institut für Lebensmittel-Systembiologie an der Technischen Universität München (LSB)

The growing world population combined with dwindling resources and the increasing prevalence of lifestyle and nutrition-associated diseases will require the sustainable production of sufficient quantities of food in the future, whose ingredient and functional profiles are tailored to the preferences, acceptance and nutritional and health needs of consumers. However, the development of promising solutions requires a completely new understanding of the system, which encompasses the complex systems of action of biologically relevant ingredients, starting with the raw materials and extending to tailor-made food products and their physiological interaction with the human organism. The Leibniz-LSB@TUM therefore aims to clarify the structure-function relationships of complex systems of biofunctional ingredients in food, to transfer these from alternative raw materials, such as algae, and process side streams into final food products using resource-saving manufacturing processes and to clarify their function as biological active and signaling molecules for the stimulation of nutritionally relevant metabolic processes (active systems research). By deciphering the translation principles of complex drug signatures (drug systems) into individualized activation patterns of molecular target structures, such as receptors and ion channels, signal transduction and gene regulation processes in cells of the gastrointestinal tract and in cells of the immune system (blood cells), new foundations for personalized nutrition concepts are to be developed and important contributions made to a better understanding of the dynamics of eating behavior as a whole. The Leibniz-LSB@TUM has a unique research profile at the interface between food chemistry & biology, chemosensors & technology and bioinformatics & machine learning. This has grown far beyond the former core discipline of classical food chemistry and is initiating the development of a SYSTEMBIOLOGY OF FOOD with regard to the biological function of complex ingredient patterns. To this end, it creates a unique research environment in which chemists, biologists, nutritionists, biotechnologists, computer scientists and mathematicians work together in teams across disciplines with the aim of establishing the new field of research as an independent discipline.