In World First, Startup Grows Human Breast Milk Fat from Yeast; Could Improve Infant Nutrition Globally

With the recent hiring of an accomplished food industry veteran, Yali Bio plans to commercialize their NIH-backed research.

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An infant bottle feeding. Most infants around the world are fed on formula, making improving infant formula nutrition a top global health priority. Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California — In a world first, scientists at a food tech startup called Yali Bio have produced a critical component of human breast milk from yeast. By allowing the creation of infant formulas that more closely match the nutrition of human breast milk, the breakthrough has the potential to improve the health of over 100 million infants a year.

While breast milk is widely accepted as the best source of nourishment for infants, according to the WHO, most of the world’s estimated 130 million babies born annually are fed infant formula at least some of the time.

To create the fat, the Yali Bio researchers used precision fermentation, a process similar to brewing beer, to coax the yeast into producing the human bioidentical fat. Specifically, they produced a fat called OPO (chemically described as 1,3-dioleoyl-2-palmitoyl-glycerol or 1,3-dioleolyl-2-palmitate), which is naturally found in high concentrations in breast milk. OPO helps infants to absorb nutrients and is critical to infant health.

Currently, OPO is one of the key nutritional differences between breast milk and infant formula, as there is no economical source of pure OPO available to the producers of formula. Instead, formulas today rely on fats from vegetable oils or cow’s milk, neither of which contains optimal levels of OPO.

At scale, Yali Bio’s technology would allow formula makers to put more OPO in their products, potentially leading to better health outcomes for infants. 

The milestone was made possible with a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

“We’re grateful for the support of NIH that allowed our team to conduct this important research, especially given the potential long-term impact it could have on infant nutrition,” says Dr. Aravind Somanchi, Yali Bio’s Vice President of Biology and principal investigator on the project. 

To help bring this and other innovations to market, the company recently hired Dr. Lorin DeBonte to be its new Senior Vice President of Innovation. DeBonte was previously at Cargill, one of the world’s largest food companies, where he was an R&D Leader and honored as an R&D Corporate Fellow.

According to Dr. Yulin Lu, CEO of Yali Bio and a veteran of Impossible Foods and Eat Just, “We are at a pivotal point in the growth of our company, which is transitioning from a platform innovator with strong scientific proofs of concept, into a business that can serve multiple markets in food and nutrition.

“With his highly accomplished career commercializing edible fats and lipids at Cargill, Dr. DeBonte will lead our innovation team and continue to develop our core competencies in ingredient innovation and applications, as well as our pipeline of partnerships.” 

DeBonte has been named in over 100 patents related to food, ingredients and crop-genetics, and has contributed to the development of numerous innovative, high-performance oils for the foodservice industry.

In 2020, DeBonte was recognized for his outstanding achievements in edible applications by the American Oil Chemist Society (AOCS).

“I am excited to join Yali Bio and to leverage our precision fermentation platform to create the next generation of fat and lipid ingredients. Our platform will help the food and nutrition industry meet consumer expectations in sustainable sourcing, plant-derived foods, and wellness. I look forward to working with our customers to develop their next formulations with our tailored fat product lines,” says DeBonte, who started the role in January.

DeBonte is only the most recent addition to Yali Bio’s growing leadership team. Former Impossible Foods executive Don DiMasi joined in October of 2023 as Senior Vice President of Biomanufacturing.

According to Lu, the company plans to continue developing its OPO research, alongside the development of other innovative ingredients, which can improve nutrition and lower the greenhouse gas emissions of food production. Already, the company’s fats have been used to make more sustainable, non-animal versions of milk, ice cream, butter, and foie gras.

“Using precision fermentation to make high-purity, functional fats and lipids is not only important for food and nutrition, but it can also be transformative for society and the planet,” says Lu.

More information about Yali Bio and its team can be found on their website, www.yali.bio.

A small bioreactor, one of the tools used by Yali Bio to conduct precision fermentation research. Photo credit: Yali Bio.

Yali Bio Senior Vice President of Innovation Dr. Lorin DeBonte. Photo credit: Yali Bio.

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