Rosário Domingues, researcher at CESAM and professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Aveiro, participated as an invited speaker in the international webinar “Food Lipidomics: New Trends and the EpiLipidNET Community”, hosted by the prestigious American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS), on March 28, 2025.
In her presentation titled “EpiLipidNET Community and the Growing Interest in Food Lipids and Lipidomics for Healthier and More Sustainable Diets”, the researcher addressed the increasing recognition of food lipidomics as a key tool to understand the role of lipids in foods—both from nutritional and functional perspectives—with a direct impact on human health and the sustainability of food systems.
Lipidomics, a branch of science focused on the comprehensive characterization of lipids in a given biological sample, has gained particular relevance in the study of complex foods. It enables the identification of thousands of lipid substances with potential metabolic, inflammatory, or antioxidant implications. In this context, Professor Rosário Domingues highlighted recent technological advances in food lipidome analysis, as well as major analytical and interpretative challenges, namely the natural variability of food samples, the structural complexity of lipids, and the integration with other omics areas such as metabolomics and proteomics.
During her talk, she also introduced the scientific community of EpiLipidNET, a European interdisciplinary network supported by COST Action and dedicated to advancing epilipidomics and lipidomics. The network currently includes more than 460 researchers from 52 countries. Running from 2020 to 2024, this initiative aimed to foster collaboration between research groups, industry, and regulatory authorities, creating synergies for standardizing methodologies and developing new applications in health, nutrition, environment, and the food industry. Professor Rosário Domingues coordinated this COST Action throughout its four-year duration and emphasized that, even after its official conclusion, the network remains active, with new collaborations and projects underway.
The webinar organized by AOCS brought together international experts in food lipidomic, providing a valuable platform for sharing knowledge and discussing emerging scientific trends, regulatory challenges, and future perspectives in lipid research applied to food and nutrition. The participation of the University of Aveiro researcher in this event reflects the active and recognized role of Portuguese academia in shaping cutting-edge knowledge in strategic areas for public health and food sustainability.