In this month’s issue of Food and Bioprocess Technology, a team from the University of Florida has announced that it is one step closer to achieving its goal of eliminating peanut allergens by removing 80% in whole peanuts. According to Professor Wade Yang, the lead author of this experiment, researchers must cut the number of peanut allergens to below a designated level for peanut-allergic patients (some 1.6 million Americans or 0.6% of the U.S. population) to be safe. The researchers utilized a pulsating light system that focused intense bursts of light to modify the proteins such that the human antibodies failed to recognize them as the same allergens. Currently, the only way for patients to stay safe is to avoid peanuts.