The ISAPP board of directors is pleased to announce the selection of the winner of the 2026 Sanders Award for Advancing Biotic Science: Prof. David Mills PhD, a Distinguished Professor and researcher at University of California, Davis, USA. Through his 30-year career in microbiology, Prof. Mills has been a leader in elucidating the genomics of lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria, and has worked diligently to translate scientific insights into practical applications.
Early in his career, Prof. Mills led numerous pioneering efforts to sequence lactic acid bacterial genomes and became well known for his work on the wine-associated bacterium Oenococcus oeni as well as Lactococcus lactis. With a focus on translating new technologies to fermented foods, he was among the first to demonstrate how emerging high-throughput DNA sequencing methods could be applied in real-world food and beverage fermentations.
Prof. Mills’ more recent work has transformed how scientists understand the interactions between the host, gut microbiome, and diet – especially in early life. His lab has examined the human infant gut bacterium Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis and how it metabolizes human milk oligosaccharides, leading to important mechanistic insights on strain-specific utilization of complex carbohydrates by different bacteria and the associated biological outcomes in human infants. These insights are currently being advanced commercially as therapeutically effective live bacteria for protecting infant health.
His current research program spans bacterial genomics, gene expression and modification, probiotics and prebiotics, and fermented foods and beverages. Prof. Mills has over 230 scientific publications to his name, and has co-founded four companies in total with the aim of advancing the applications of his scientific findings. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology and has served on numerous editorial boards and committees.
Prof. Mills is also an acclaimed mentor, having proudly trained over 50 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. In 2024, he received the UC Davis Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentorship Award.
About the Sanders Award
The Sanders Award for Advancing Biotic Science was established in 2023 with the support of generous contributions from ISAPP community members, in honor of ISAPP’s founding Executive Science Officer, Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders PhD. This annual award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions throughout their career to the scientific fields of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics, fermented foods, or the microbiome. Prof. Mills was selected as the 2026 winner by the award committee, which included ISAPP board members, an industry member representative, and Dr. Sanders. Prof. Mills receives a cash award and will speak at the ISAPP annual meeting in Tokyo in October, 2026.
