Electroporation as a cutting edge technique shaping the future of food processing: Comment on: "Advances in pulsed electric stimuli as a physical method for treating liquid foods" by Farzan Zare, Negareh Ghasemi, Nidhi Bansal, Hamid Hosano

Electroporation, also known as electropermeabilization or electrostimulation, is the process of using pulsed electric fields (PEF) to create temporary pores in the cell membranes of biological tissues. By applying specific electrical pulses, the cell membrane’s permeability is increased, allowing the entry or exit of ions, molecules, and other compounds [1]. The versatility of electroporation extends to its application many fields. In biomedicine, it was already demonstrated as a revolutionary therapeutic frontier for cancer treatments. Electrochemotherapy, for example, involves applying electroporation to tumor cells after administering chemotherapeutic agents [2]. This localized treatment, widely accepted into the clinic, significantly enhances drug uptake within the tumor, while reducing systemic side effects. Electroporation is also widely used for the delivery of DNA sequences coding antigens or immunomodulatory molecules in vaccination/immunization protocols against infectious and cancer diseases [3,4]. Cardiac ablation is another field explored and applied in human patients to treat atrial fibrillation [5]. All these results have been achieved thanks to the interdisciplinary exchanges among the scientific community involved in PEF studies, whose aim is to start from the basic research on in silicomodels to the different tuning of electric fields to translate into practical challenges posed by the new demands of the contemporary world. Besides applications in biomedicine, electroporation has shown great promise in food processing. In recent years, this cutting-edge technique is being employed to modify the cell membranes of food products for a variety of purposes [6,7]. In an era in which foodborne illnesses remain a significant public health concern, prompting the need for effective microbial control measures in the food industry is mandatory. Electroporation can render pathogens more susceptible to antimicrobial treatments [8]. This methodology has also demonstrated