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Summary In biology, scientist’s interest for high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) has increased over the last 20 years, for both research and industrial developments, mainly because of the low energy associated with its application in liquid phase and its capacity to inactivate pathogens. It is now considered as an interesting alternative to heat treatments for the inactivation of contaminants in many products, from foods to pharmaceutical preparations. This last statement implies different objectives according to the type of product. The therapeutic properties of pharmaceutical preparations or other biological media of physiological importance are in general associated with specific and well‐defined molecules such as proteins. Their activity mainly depends on their spatial conformation, maintained by weak chemical bonds that are often pressure sensitive. In this case, the optimization of a HHP process can be more complex than for foods, for which the organoleptic molecules are less pressure sensitive, and the evaluation of their preservation is more subjective and highly dependant on the consumers acceptance. The objective of this review is therefore to underline how, even if the basic concept for the optimization of a pathogen reduction process using HHP is the same whatever the product, major differences arise from the product itself and its final use.

Pressure as a thermodynamical parameter was successively introduced in physics, hydrometallurgy, geochemistry, and biology. In all cases, the main objective was to recreate a natural phenomenon (gas or liquid compressibility, synthesis or crystal growth of minerals, survival of deep sea microorganisms…). The introduction of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) in Biology was an important scientific feature over the last hundred years. This paper describes the different steps that have led to the spreading of pressure in biology and the opening of new frontiers either in basic and applied researches due to the specific characteristics of the pressure parameter. Because of the low energy conveyed by this parameter, leading to the preservation of most organoleptic properties of foods, and its ability to inactivate many pathogens, the use of HHP began to spread at the end of the twentieth century into the food industry, in particular for the development of pathogen inactivation processes. Today, even if this field is still the first application domain for HHP, more and more research works have shown that this parameter could be of great interest in health and medicine sciences.