About

The ALLPreT consortium combines expertise from 10 different PhD projects in immunology, protein chemistry, exposure assessment, and computational modelling. Our goal is to develop science-based, transparent, and predictive approaches that improve how allergenic risks of novel foods are assessed within Europe.

Background uitklapper, klik om te openen

Introducing novel foods, such as insects, will contribute to the security and sustainability of European and global food supplies. However, these novel foods need to be safe. Determining the allergenic potential of food proteins is essential to the safety assessment of novel foods. 

Current methods to assess de novo allergenicity lack predictive power and are not validated. As a consequence, food producers and risk assessors struggle with allergenicity assessment, slowing down the introduction of novel foods in our food supply. Enabling the safe introduction of novel foods, while protecting humans from unacceptable food allergy risks, calls for a multidisciplinary approach.

Team science uitklapper, klik om te openen

The ALLPreT programme consists of a multidisciplinary group of researchers from The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Serbia, Denmark, and Bulgaria, aiming to discover new approaches, tools, and assays to enable the safe introduction of novel foods and protect humans from unacceptable food allergy risks.

This will be done by unravelling food allergy mechanisms (e.g., route of sensitization (oral, respiratory and skin), involvement immune cells, in vitro/ in vivo responses), investigate intrinsic properties of allergenic proteins (e.g., epitopes, digestibility, physicochemical properties) and exploring the use of a threshold of sensitization.

Read more about our partners. 

Doctoral Training Network uitklapper, klik om te openen

As a Marie Curie Doctoral Network, ALLPreT trains the next generation of scientists who can tackle the challenges in the current food allergy assessment of novel food products. This means we guide early stage researchers (ESRs) in the core aspects of food allergy risk assessment, immunology, protein chemistry, bioinformatics, in vitro/in vivo/in silico model development and complementary “soft” skills to deliver well educated young scientists, with a unique position within the EU labour market.

Read more about Marie Curie Doctoral Networks.

Scientific goal uitklapper, klik om te openen

We explore the new field of research on de novo sensitisation by novel foods and develop a toolbox with in vitro/in vivo/in silico allergenicity prediction tools that are scientifically sound, validated and easily usable by industry and food safety authorities. This toolbox will contribute to fast and accurate safety assessment, thereby speeding up safety approval and market uptake of novel foods.

Follow our latest research updates on the news overview or on our LinkedIn.