“If we are telling parents that breast is best, but most of them are going to use formula at some point, why aren’t we just trying to make breast milk?” - Laura Katz on why she founded Helaina.
Breast milk is considered to be the most appropriate food source for all infants because of the benefits it provides to both the infant and the breastfeeding person. . Breast milk provides all of the nutrients that are necessary for the physical and mental development of the babies. Human milk contains approximately 0.8% to 0.9% protein, 3% to 5% fat, 6.9% to 7.2% carbohydrates, and 0.2% ash (minerals). These bioactive components include immune proteins that support the infant's immune system helping them to fight disease, and decreasing their risk for infant mortality. Some studies suggest that breastfeeding may be associated with a lower risk of developing diet-related diet-related non-communicable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. The WHO and CDC both recommend exclusively breastfeeding infants for the first six months of life and continue feeding with breast milk alongside complementary feeding until one year of age and up to two years of age.
Unfortunately, there are many various barriers to feeding with breastmilk. Some researchers, like Professor Laura Katz, have decided to search for a solution to make human breast milk more accessible to parents and infants, by providing parents with a better option to the formulas that are currently available on the market. Back on November 22, 2021, our team had the opportunity to sit with Laura on our Instagram live to learn more about her work. Laura Katz is an expert food scientist and alumni of NYU’s Graduate Program in Food Studies. She is also a professor of Food Science and Technology here at NYU! As a self-described “Milk Magician” she founded Helaina, a research and development company dedicated to improving the health and development of infants by making a first of its kind nature-equivalent human breast milk alternative. Her team works to replicate the unique components, such as immune proteins, found in breast milk using microbial fermentation; these proteins could provide infants with immunological benefits similar to those they would normally get from human breast milk. Helaina is giving parents a better option for their children that offers the closest nutritional benefits to breast milk compared to other products currently on the market. At the beginning of our discussion, Laura shared how she became interested in working in the food technology sector and how she came up with the idea for Helaina.
She stated that from a young age, she was obsessed with food and loved science. Then she graduated, and she wanted to broaden her understanding of food outside of the sciences because culture and behavior are so important in developing food products from a scientific perspective. This perspective allowed her to think further in terms of what it means to people and that turned into a lot of different jobs where I really started to fall in love with developing food products.
She decided to create Helaina because she saw a need for (or a gap in the current market of meat and dairy alternatives)…nobody cares what we are feeding our babies and pushing that into the future which really motivated Helaina. Helaina was making so many products and seeing where we're putting our dollars and seeing where we're putting in the effort but that wasn't happening for babies but what that really means is their parents because it's the mother who has to use their body to provide milk. It is not possible for everyone.
Finding an alternative to breast milk for infants is important because… almost all parents in the US rely on infant formula at some point due to medical issues, breast cancer or some diseases. It might prevent them from using their breastfeeds because the baby might not latch in the hospital during the first few days. Additionally, 25% of mothers go back to work within two weeks in the US. Two weeks maternity leave is not enough to recover from giving birth and they have to go back to work. Some mothers can try to pump breast milk, but it is cumbersome due to office work and a safe place to pump milk. I think the reason why somebody would reach for infant formula is really personal and there's so many reasons. Breast milk is the best option but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't innovate on the alternative to support parents with this idea.
Helaina is different from options that are currently on the market because…current formulas don't contain human proteins. Helaina is the first company ever to include human proteins into food. Moreover, we are really the first people to humanize formulas whereas current infant formulas depend on corn syrup, maltodextrin soy and that is the antithesis of what Helania is trying to do.
Breast milk is complex and composed of different kinds of components which help to build babies' immunity, improve gut health, brain development, and many other functions. As a scientific community, we have not yet been able to identify each of the things found in breast milk that have specific functions. However, we have been able to identify a unique set of proteins found in breast milk. Helaina’s goal is to recreate all of the unique proteins, but they are only able to make one at a time. They are able to use fermentation technology to recreate the proteins. To do this her team of food scientists and engineers take yeast and teach them how, or program them, to manufacture breast milk proteins.
We have a whole team of yeast engineers. We provide nutrition to yeast, and they multiply in large volumes, and they produce proteins. We make our proteins in giant fermenters, and we collect them and purify them.
At step two, we take the protein, and the immunology team looks at all of these functions in our protein. We can recreate protein in our lab and bring them to a consumer product. Parents who turned to formula will know what we're providing to them.
There are probably hundreds of proteins in breast milk but four or five comprises 90 percent of the proteins. So we are making one at a time and we are starting to scale up the production. Now our focus is to see what happened in the lab in scaling up the production of protein one with the manufacturer.
Helaina really wants to change what nutrition means to people right now. We think to include immunity in addition to nutrition, calories, vitamins, and minerals.
To hear more from our discussion with Laura Katz, watch the IGTV post on our Instagram page and recorded live.
Sources
Jeness R. The composition of human milk. Semin Perinatol. 1979;3(3):225-239.
Ballard O, Morrow AL. Human milk composition: nutrients and bioactive factors. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2013;60(1):49-74. doi:10.1016/j.pcl.2012.10.002
Horta BL, Loret de Mola C, Victora CG. Long-term consequences of breastfeeding on cholesterol, obesity, systolic blood pressure and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Paediatr. 2015;104(467):30-37. doi:10.1111/apa.13133
CDC. Breastfeeding faqs. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published August 10, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/faq/index.htm
Comments