Emerging Models and Methods for Nutrition and Risk Assessment

Food not only provides essential nutrition for the human body but also contains a variety of bioactive food components that regulate health, such as polyphenols, bioactive peptides, and prebiotics. Meanwhile, various potential risk factors may be introduced or generated during the production, processing, storage, and transportation of food, including biological toxins, pesticide residues, pathogenic microorganisms, and harmful substances formed during processing. Accurate and systematic identification of key bioactive molecules and risk factors is foundational to understanding diet–health relationships. It also supports improved food quality, stronger food safety, and greater value across the food system.

However, traditional research methods often rely on targeted analysis and limited chemical knowledge, making it difficult to rapidly pinpoint key compounds within the complex food system. Therefore, developing efficient, accurate, and high-throughput new methods and strategies to achieve in-depth mining and comprehensive screening of bioactive food component and risk factors in complex food matrices has become the core driving force and an urgent need for the development of this field. Innovation in methodology is critical in shaping the depth and breadth of our understanding of food and will enable advance in precision nutrition, early detection and monitoring of food safety risk, and the development of novel functional foods.

In recent years, a series of interdisciplinary new methods and strategies have emerged, greatly advancing the development of this field. Methodologically, non-targeted screening and imaging techniques based on high-resolution mass spectrometry, enrichment strategies for characteristic molecules based on click chemistry, rapid detection methods based on biosensing and nanotechnology, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, have enabled the high-throughput capture, analysis, and prediction of complex chemical components in food. Furthermore, advancements in research models have provided revolutionary tools for the in-depth evaluation of bioactive food component and hazard substances. Novel biological models, such as organoids and zebrafish have rapidly risen, offering unprecedented convenience for screening the health functions of active components for humans and rapidly assessing the risks of toxic substances, significantly enhancing the predictive accuracy and physiological relevance of functional verification and safety evaluation.

These emerging methods and models together form a methodological framework from discovery and identification to functional verification, significantly improving the throughput and robustness of research. Ultimately, these advancements will lay a solid scientific and technological foundation for building a healthier, safer, and more sustainable food system.

This research aims to summarize new models and methods for assessing the impact of bioactive components in food on human health and risk assessment. We emphasize the novelty and cutting-edge nature of the research methods and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration. This topic will prioritize the comparison between new models/methods and classic research strategies. By connecting classic research strategies with emerging models/methods, we hope to provide new perspectives for food nutrition and risk research.

This research section will provide a platform to highlight new models and methods for assessing the impacts of bioactive ingredients in food on human health. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

● Emerging in vitro models for assessing the effects of active food ingredients on human health (e.g., organoids, etc.)

● Emerging animal models for assessing the effects of active food ingredients on human health (e.g., zebrafish, nematodes, etc.)

● Animal disease models for assessing the effects of active food ingredients on human health

● Emerging methods for assessing the effects of active food ingredients on human health (e.g., artificial intelligence, mass spectrometry imaging, click chemistry, etc.)

● Emerging methods for detecting or assessing food safety (e.g., biosensing, etc.)

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• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
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• General Commentary
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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Food nutrition, risk assessment, Emerging models and methods, Organoids, Artificial intelligence

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