Making progress on special milks

30-08-2010 | Annette Scott

Making progress on special milks

Annette Scott

Initial research to produce hyper-immune milk is likely to see Canterbury-based milk processor Synlait Milk commercialise the new product in the next three years.

Synlait Milk, in collaboration with AgResearch, has been carrying out internal hyper-immune research work over the past two years.

Synlait technical support manager Terry Hughes said that work was in terms of challenging cows with a range of antigens to determine cow responders. Some hyper-immune (Stolle) milk is based on colostrums and the naturally high levels of Immunoglobin G (IgG) that it contains.

AgResearch scientists have developed a method to vaccinate cows with micro-organisms that can cause infectious diseases in humans. Using killed bacteria he vaccination process is similar to that used in all vaccinations of humans and animals.

The vaccinated cows respond by producing increased levels of specific IgA antibodies in their milk. These antibodies are able to bind the disease-causing organism. The milk can be collected and processed and used in human food products.

The hyper-immune milk that cows produce will be processed to a powder containing increased levels of IgA antibodies when compared with normal milk powder. It will be particularly useful to people whose own immune system is weakened.

"We are getting some large scale (cow) responders now and from the very preliminary studies to date it appears to be genetically transferred."

The next angle to push is to explore milk with specific antibodies to human conditions, especially related to infant formula, Hughes said. "We are getting very close to kicking off full scale."

The next process is to screen around 7000 cows to get a 700-cow herd of responders to further explore with antigens of treated strains, no longer pathogenic, but sufficient in terms of immune response.

"This further research work will explore conditions specific to infants, in particular in Asian infant formula, where future opportunities lie."

In preparation for this specialist production Synlait is installing a specific built dryer, with an expected commissioning date of September 2011.

"There are a lot of strings in hyper-immune stuff happening, that's one string Synlait is pushing in terms of hyper-immune research. We can't let out all our secrets," Hughes said.

Hughes did confirm Synlait was hopeful of having products available to be commercialised in three years. "But that may not be in New Zealand."

The vaccination trials on the dairy cows are expensive and time-consuming. The only manipulation, by means of vaccination, is carried out in the dry period when the cows are not being milked. The animals go on to be observed and milk samples are collected throughout the subsequent milking season.

Research has proven that there is no detrimental effect of the vaccination on the health of the cow.

Synlait veterinarian Dave Campbell said confirmation this month of Primary Growth Partnership funding to the industry group would allow for some exciting progress going forward.

"We can look to work with our research partner now to roll our project forward over the next few months and get more of the scientific questions answered with view to commercialising in time." But Campbell stressed it was early days yet.

Synlait has also been researching the development of a "sleepy milk" product. Work to date has focused on naturally alleviating the sleepy hormone - melatonin in milk.

"In terms of production of that (sleepy milk) we are looking at variability around naturally manipulating on-farm practices."

With higher levels of melatonin naturally produced in darkness milk harvesting at night or very early morning has seen melatonin levels increase five-fold.

However, Hughes expressed grave doubt as to whether such natural on-farm practice will be sufficient for end product use.

"It's interesting where we have got to at the minute but there's no certainty we can go further. We have not done the efficacy work but despite the two years of work to date we don't think we are in that ball park," Hughes said.

Dairy giant Fonterra confirmed to Farmers Weekly that it was not working on any hyper-immune development projects.

"We simply pick up Stolle milk to sell to our customers. We have no Stolle milk products in development ourselves," a Fonterra spokesperson said.

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