Implications of genomics for food and nutrition

Genomics research is accelerating dramatically our understanding of the molecules of life. The same knowledge and technologies that are discovering therapeutic cures for human disease will be equally valuable in discovering pathways to greater human health and more nutritious, safer and delicious foods. Nutrition and food sciences will go beyond genomics to proteomics and metabolomics to understand how foods influence gene expression, metabolism and functions within each individual consumer. Improving consumer health is a bold promise and if scientists are to produce such foods they will need the understanding and the technologies that the genomics-based sciences are building. Once in place, such understanding and technologies will be able to deliver more than just prevention of a few diseases. All the values of foods will improve, from safety and health to efficient processing and product delight. As chemistry has been the tool set of processing in the 20th century, the knowledge built with genomics will enable biology itself to become the food and nutritionists tool set of the 21st century.