In collaboration with US University of Illinois-Champaign, University of Florida, King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, and the Polytechnic Institute in Coimbra, Portugal, a joint research team from Yarmouk university and the University of Science and Technology developed a nano-method made of plant proteins to deliver and preserve vitamin D in everyday food and beverages.

Dr. Yazan Al-Akam, the lead researcher in the research project from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Yarmouk University, said that the project aims at developing a way to improve the supply of vitamin D as a way to prevent corona virus and to mitigate the impact of the lack of sun exposure resulting from the bans, pointing out that before the Corona pandemic, specialists believe that the proportion of Jordanians suffering from vitamin D deficiency or inadequacy is between 50% and 80% while the Corona pandemic has caused an excessive increase in people's demand for the use of vitamin D. He explained that the problem of vitamin D deficiency lies in the ease of breaking it due to acid circles, heat, sunlight/UV rays, and oxidized substances in foods. Thus, the research project extractsthe protein from peas to producenano vectors encapsulating vitamin D and protecting it from all the factors that may lead to its destruction.

He then said that experiments show that such vectors can save vitamin D in several daily food products such as juice (natural and artificial), milk and infant formula, with little effect on taste or color assessed by nutritionists and tasters.He added that this method allows the addition of vitamin D to any product including water. Noteworthy is that the results of the research were accepted in the international journal Nanomaterials (Q1) (the highest rating) with 4.2 effect factor under the title: "Pea Protein Nanoemulsion effectively stabilizes Vitamin D in food products: a potential supplementation during COVID-19 pandemic".