An important activity of Biosearch is dedicated to technological innovation aimed at the discovery of new bioactive compounds, to improve production processes and optimize products under development. For this purpose Biosearch has developed an integrated approach that involves the following research activities.
- Creation and conservation of a “bioactive microalgal culture” collection with about 100 strains capable of producing bioactive substances with pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmeceutical potential
- Implementation of microalgal biomass from small laboratory scale to medium scale in 100 L photobioreactors to obtain biomass for extraction and development of bioactive products
- Ability to optimize the production of bioactive compounds in microalgae through interventions on metabolic pathways involving changes in growth parameters such as the quality of light and concentration of nutrients
- Management of a fine chemical screening platform for the isolation, purification and structural characterization of bioactive molecules obtained from marine microalgae
- Characterization of the biological activity of extracts, fractions and pure compounds isolated from marine microalgae through an advanced screening platform on human cell lines. Screenings include a number of molecular analyses that allow to predict the type of pharmacological, nutraceutical, and cosmeceutical activity of compounds and produce them at an industrial scale also using synthetic chemistry
- Synthesis at gram scale of biocatice compounds and preparation of chemical analogs for studies of medicinal chemistry and cell biology.
