Biologically Active Components of Human Milk

PROJECT SUMMARY
The 6th FASEB SRC conference on the Biologically Active Components in Human Milk will be held on July 13-
17, 2025 at the Niagara Falls Convention Center and Sheraton Niagara Falls, NY. Human milk is the ideal source
of infant nutrition and provides a range of benefits for both the baby and the mother. The well-established benefits
of human milk underscore the need for the scientific and medical community to disseminate new research
findings. The goal of this FASEB SRC is to advance the science of human milk by bringing together professionals
from academia, government and industry to share their expertise in many facets of human milk biology and the
benefits to infant nutrition. Another goal is to support a collegial environment which encourages students and
underrepresented groups to establish careers and collaborations in this space.
In the past decade, the importance of human milk in infant nutrition has become a priority for the National
Institutes of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and initiated the “Breastmilk Ecology: Genesis of
Infant Nutrition (BEGIN)” Project in 2020. The BEGIN Project and subsequent reports led to NICHD funding of
several projects focused on human milk as a biological system. This FASEB SRC will highlight some of these
ongoing projects from the BEGIN initiative and their findings as well as other sessions listed below.
• Nutritional and immunological benefits of human milk. Human milk is uniquely tailored to meet the nutritional
needs of infants, providing optimal balance of nutrients, antibodies, and bioactive components that play a
crucial role in the infant's healthy growth and development.
• Novel experimental models and systems approaches to study the biology of human milk and milk
components and their impact on host immunology, metabolism and functional development.
• New insights into how mammary gland biology and lactation influence the nutritional and functional
components of human milk.
• Identify the challenges of breast feeding and how alternatives of feeding donor milk and milk substitutes
impacts growth and functional outcomes in infants.
The conference also will focus on career development to foster engagement and inclusion of students and early
career investigators with their professional ambitions. A career development workshop and meet-the-expert
opportunities allow attendees from academia, industry and government to share their career paths, experiences
and strategies for success. The specific aims of this application are to subsidize registration and travel of invited
speakers in the early career investigator category and also provide travel awards for students with outstanding
abstracts, posters and oral presentations. Supporting the next generation of researchers, clinicians and
educators in the field of human milk and lactation will advance the NICHD’s current objectives.

Grant Number: 1R13HD118653-01
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: DOUGLAS BURRIN