From Individual Nutrients to Sustainable Nutrition.

Unilever is helping people to improve their health and wellbeing. Clear time-bound nutrition targets have been committed to in our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and progress is reported annually. Our commitment to nutrition focusses on delivering products that are responsibly delicious and we inspire people to consume more nutritious diets. We developed our nutritional standards for reformulation, addressing the relevant nutrients of concern: saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, and sugar. In addition, we provide essential vitamins and minerals via our products, using a variety of high-quality ingredients or by adding micronutrients to commonly eaten foods via fortification. We are dialing up on plant-based offerings, like plant-based meat alternatives, dairy-free ice cream, and solutions for more plant-based meals. We empower people to consume more nutritious diets through our recipes and behavior change programs. We launched the Future 50 program that highlights 50 nutritious, plant-based ingredients for a more sustainable food system, which can be incorporated into daily meals. We run campaigns to inspire people to cook more nutritious meals, an example includes the program around our iron-fortified bouillon in Nigeria and Kenya. Reformulation and innovation do not come without challenges. We must consider the functionality of nutrients in the product, regulatory limitations, and consumer demand. The call for sustainable diets is clear and to make the dietary shift happen, as is needed for healthy diets within the boundaries of the planet, a strong multi-stakeholder approach is needed.

A cell-based screening assay for Natural Killer cell activity.

Natural Killer (NK) cells are important in the first response against viruses and tumours. Compounds that modulate human NK cell activity offer interesting prophylactic and therapeutic options, however, a systematic screening tool is lacking. Development of suitable NK cell lines or receptor-based assays is hindered by the highly complicated regulation of the different NK cell subsets by multiple receptors. Here, we describe a cell-based flowcytometric activity assay adapted to identify NK cell modulating compounds. Fresh human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were incubated with NK-sensitive K562 target cells labelled with 5-(6)-carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester, followed by DNA-labelling with propidium iodide to identify dead cells. The assay demonstrated a good performance with an average Z'-factor of 0.6 and over 95% of the assays fulfilled the quality criteria, suggesting that it is possible to use a complex system with two different cell types to screen compounds. A large number of (natural) compounds and extracts were tested and normalized to the positive control, Interleukin-2. Promising and less promising compounds were distinguished. Effectiveness of compounds was based on the augmentation of NK cell activity as well as the number of responding subjects. To conclude the assay is robust, reliable and can be used for functional screening of natural compounds modulating NK cell activity.