Bioactives from Whey Processing Project

Human breast milk contains a family of complex sugars called oligosaccharides believed to stimulate the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the infant intestine, while at the same time inhibiting pathogenic microorganisms. The health benefits that milk oligosaccharides provide for infants could also be available to humans of all ages, if the same structures and functions could be provided in the diet. Both human and bovine milk are known to contain oligosaccharides, especially at the early lactation stage. But fluid bovine milk contains only trace amounts of these valuable components. The aim of this project is to identify whey products or by-products that provide these valuable compounds at greater concentration than fluid milk. Whey permeate is a by-product obtained when cheese whey is passed through an ultrafiltration membrane to concentrate whey protein. In collaboration with several national and international industrial and academic partners, Milk Bioactives Program researchers have been developing processing technologies that aid in obtaining bovine milk oligosaccharides from whey streams. In this project, state-of-the art mass spectrometry technologies are being used to identify and characterize new oligosaccharide structures.