Every year, Alltech holds an International Animal Health and Nutrition Symposium. It attracts leading researchers throughout the world, who discuss cutting edge research findings and technological developments. The company’s president and CEO, Dr. Pearse Lyons, takes an active role in the symposium, and provides an update on priorities within the company. Dr. Lyons goal, and that of his company, is to redefine nutrition. Following are his comments on both animal and human nutrition, and the areas in which his company hopes to have an impact:
“In the future, perhaps nutrition will be redefined by the gene chip. A gene chip contains 30,000–40,000 genes, collectively called a genome. On the gene chip, we may have both the history and the future of our industry. The gene chip offers a tool for innovative breakthroughs. We only need to look at the gene chip to determine which genes are up-regulated and which are down-regulated in response to nutritional changes. By examining these patterns, we can search for alternative, less costly feed ingredients.
Vitamin E
Worldwide, corn, soya, and fat comprise the three most important and most expensive dietary ingredients. Invariably, the fourth ingredient is vitamin E. We have it ingrained in our thinking that we must have a certain number of international units of vitamin E, and when things go wrong we respond by doubling or even tripling the vitamin E content. But this is unnecessary. If we look at all the molecular functions that vitamin E performs, we have a blueprint for developing an alternative dietary ingredient.
Simply put, vitamin E plays several key roles in diet, one of which is to help retain the red color of meat. The myoglobin in meat is responsible for meat color; the oxidation state of iron in the myoglobin dictates that color (+2 red; +3 brown). So to preserve meat redness, we must slow the rate of oxidation. To address this challenge, we ran a nutrigenomics experiment in which we added up to five times the NRC level of vitamin E. With EconomasE® (Alltech’s Vitamin E product), we were able to stabilize meat color using one fifth the level of vitamin E normally required. Thus, the gene chip showed us how to remove 80 percent of the cost of the fourth-most important ingredient in animal feed. The challenge is, “Are you going to embrace that incredible innovation that dramatically lowers costs?”
Only when you believe in innovation and encourage its early adoption will you move significantly ahead of your competitors.
Algae
When the banks said, “Sorry Pearse, we are giving you no more money [for your Biorefinery Community Concept].” Did I say, “Okay, do we drop our rural community
integrated biorefinery?” Absolutely not. We take the crucial components (i.e., algae and solid state fermentation (SSF)) and we march forward with them, so that when the crisis is over we will be ready to use algae to create nutrients and biofuels, to capture carbon dioxide, and to receive carbon credits. Algae is part of our future.
Antibiotics
We are re-imagining growth promotion, which has led to the development of another patented product: Actigen®. In this case, nutrigenomics was used to identify key metabolic processes in the jejunum affected by wheat challenge. Now, this product can do everything antibiotics can do and more.
Mycotoxins
These hidden killers are on our farms and in our wines and beers. But now, novel mycotoxin-capturing technology is available, which was derived by modifying the physiochemical structure of the yeast cell wall.
Environment
Steve Leeson showed years ago you can use minerals at one-fifth the traditional level and get a better performance if they are chelated, leading to lower costs, better performance, and 80 percent less environmental pollution. Yet people have been slow to embrace these innovations.
Quality
Our challenge is to manufacture safe, reliable products with total traceability. We analyze every batch of product for dioxin-PCBs at the cost of $1,200 per analysis package. We are diligent when it comes to protecting our reputation and consumer health by providing traceability.
Research
Alltech-sponsored experiments, conducted at the Department of Neurobiology of the University of Kentucky, were designed to study the effect of the form of dietary selenium on immune response. Three groups of mice were fed different forms of selenium. All of the mice were challenged with cancer cells that produced brain tumors. The first group, fed sodium selenite, died after cancer cells in the brain continued to grow. The second group was fed the supposed active selenium ingredient from yeast … selenomethionine. Yet, these mice also died from brain cancer. In contrast, the mice from the third group, fed a natural form of selenium (Sel-Plex®), are still alive and well. The implications for opportunities in this area are enormous.”
Editor’s Note: This commentary is sponsored by Alltech. Through 29 years of research-driven product development, Alltech has created a range of natural solutions for the feed and food industries. For more information, please visit the Web sites at www.alltech.com.
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