AF-EU-15003 IMPARAS (BO-33.04-003-001)

Food safety assessment is an important subject to address before new products can be brought to market, comprising the investigation of microbiological and toxicological hazards, next to the risk of food allergy.

From industry point of view, there is a need for relatively cheap and easy tools for screening for allergenicity of new or modified  food proteins, early decision-making during product development and an improved risk assessment strategy accepted by regulatory authorities.

The new multi-disciplinary scientific network will improve strategies to predict allergenicity of novel proteins with out of the box ideas. This allows the transfer of scientific advances to European food companies to develop safe products, advice food safety authorities on better risk assessment strategies and change the public opinion on the safety of novel sustainable food.

ImpARAS will improve and stimulate:

• Basic knowledge on allergy risk assessment in relation to new, modified or processed proteins.
• Building of an European network of leading institutes on food allergy, food safety and food processing to develop more focused research projects with improved possibilities of delivering successful outcomes.
• Development of relatively cheap and easy tools (in vitro, in silico and in vivo models) for prediction of sensitization.
• Understanding the effect of food matrix and food structure and food processing on food allergy. Next to the protein source, every of the required processing steps will strongly affect the potential allergenicity of the product.
• Dissemination of knowledge to the European food industry, consumers and food safety authorities on safe food products
• The process of detecting allergenicity early in the research and development process of (new) protein products. Cost savings can be achieved when allergenicity is predicted early in the process of development of (novel) proteins.
• Training and education of young European scientist which are educated in food allergy, food science and food chemistry.