"Ultra-Processed Food and Health: From Mechanisms to Actions” brought together many of the world’s leading experts to examine one of the most pressing topics in nutrition science.

The symposium convened an international group of researchers, clinicians and policy experts to explore the rapidly evolving science surrounding ultra-processed foods and their impact on human health. Discussions spanned the biological mechanisms linking ultra-processed foods to chronic disease, the gaps in available research, the role of the food environment and industry practices, and opportunities for policy and public health action.

Manganese dioxide can convert amino acids into hydrogen cyanide (HCN) without requiring methane, solving a long-standing puzzle about the origin of this key prebiotic molecule on early Earth, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Although HCN is central to origin-of-life theories, recent evidence suggests early Earth's atmosphere didn’t contain sufficient methane needed for classic HCN-producing reactions. The newly found chemical pathway shows that HCN could instead have been continuously supplied from abundant amino acids.

A team in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the EHU-University of the Basque Country and which is part of the BIOMAT group has developed structures for cartilage regeneration based on cellulose, gelatin and soy proteins with promising mechanical and biological properties. Obtained from food industry by-products, these scaffolds stand out because of their biocompatibility, printability and potential to promote cell viability in tissue engineering applications.