Professor Ellen Demerath

Human milk is highly varied between individual women, but the genetic architecture of milk variation is virtually unknown. The MILK-Omics project utilizes human milk DNA, RNA, nutrient composition, metabolomics, human milk oligosaccharides, and other non-nutritional milk components, as well as extensive phenotypic information on mothers and infants including infant fecal microbiomes. These data are obtained from an ongoing observational cohort study of healthy mothers and infants. The project goal is to describe the systems biology of human milk and identify novel pathways linking maternal nutritional and health status to infant growth and development.