The 17th International Symposium on Probiotics and Health, hosted by the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology, was held in Hangzhou from August 10 to 12. More than 500 representatives from over 150 research institutes, universities and enterprises at home and abroad attended the conference.

As one of the most influential conferences in the industry, the symposium invited distinguished experts in the field of probiotics and presented about 50 reports. Speakers coming from authoritative organizations including Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology, National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA), International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotic (ISAPP), as well as from universities including Jiangnan University, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, etc. shared their insights on the research, development,regulatory status, opportunities and challenges of the field. More than 50 research institutes and enterprises submitted 147 abstracts.

During the symposium, four special sessions were held in parallel, covering topics of human microecology and health (12 reports), research and industrialization of probiotic, prebiotic and postbiotic (12 reports), construction and trends of standards  and regulatory system for probiotics (10 reports), analysis of frontier scientific issues and new technologies (6 reports).

As the highlight of the conference, two academic achievements were announced: the “Scientific Review of ‘Dose-response Relationship’”and the “Research Status and Industrial Application of Postbiotic”, marking another milestone of the development of microbiota research.

Key words of the symposium include: gut microecology, microbiome, immunology, epigenetics, genomics, postbiotic, standards, regulations,  precision identification of strain,  approval process, etc.