Credit: R. Press/NIST
Remoroza operates a mass spectrometer, a laboratory instrument used to identify chemical compounds. “We want to find out as many details as we can about milk because it is so important, but so little is known about its chemistry,” Remoroza said.
Got milk? Most people have seen the famous ads featuring celebrities that highlight the importance of drinking milk for building strong bones. Research shows that milk has other benefits, especially for babies, such as helping them grow and strengthening their immune systems. But scientists still don’t understand exactly how milk does these things.
Solving that mystery starts with identifying the compounds in milk. To support that effort, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have recently doubled the size of a reference library that includes examples of a certain type of carbohydrate found in milk from humans and several other animals. The expansion of the library will help scientists identify the unknown compounds in their own milk samples. The researchers published their new findings in Analytical Chemistry.
The composition of milk varies from mother to mother, but in general human milk contains 87% water and 13% nutrients, including fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Milk researchers often focus on a type of carbohydrate called oligosaccharides, one of the many different sugars in milk. These sugars are known to have a biological effect, such as providing energy for growing babies or contributing to organ development.
“Babies cannot chew or swallow solid food, so they are highly dependent on milk for growth. It’s a miracle compound,” said NIST chemist Connie Remoroza.
One of the main reasons why scientists analyze oligosaccharides is because if they can determine ..
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