Benoit Quéguineur1, Marine dehail1, Jérémy Brébion1, Franck Hennequart1, Antonio Marzochella2, Maria Hayes 3, Luísa Afonso Barreira4, Pavel Hrouzek5, David Sedlák6, Dorit Avni 7
1ALGAIA, Research and Development Centre, 91 rue Edouard Branly, 50000 Saint Lô, France
2UNINA, Dip. di Ingegneria Chimica, dei Materiali e della Produzione Industriale, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy
3TEAGASC, Food Research Centre, Ashtown, Dublin 15, Ireland
4University of Algarve, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Campus de Gambelas, Ed. 7, 8005-139 Faro
5MIKROBIOLOGICKY USTAV AV CR V.V.I (IMIC), Videnska 1083,
Prague 4 142 00, Czech Republic
6CZ–Openscreen, Institute of Molecular Genetics AS CR, Videnska 1083,
Prague 4 142 00, Czech Republic
7MIGAL Applied Research Institute, Sphingolipids, natural-biocompounds and immune modulation laboratory, 2 Tarshish Str, South Industrial Zone, Kiryat-Shmona 11016, Israel
Algae4IBD’s mission is to develop commercial products for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) prevention and treatment using aquatic natural biological resources. With the emerging developments in natural product, notable success has been achieved in discovering natural products and their synthetic analogues with anti-inflammatory activity. Micro and macroalgae, found in marine and freshwater, have been identified as promising sources of bioactive compounds including small molecules and secondary metabolites with a wide range of bioactivities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and cancer preventive. Those offer an enormous potential for developing commercial products with public health benefits. Consumption of algae could, therefore, provide defence against chronic inflammatory diseases such as IBD, that until date have no effective cure. This project offers nature to bedside approach, using an entire development along the value chain for a new biodiscovery therapeutic approach by developing and examining algae-based compounds for IBD patients while guaranteeing algae’s biodiversity preservation. We propose innovative solutions for increasing the use of algae-based ingredients and to ensure the science-based improvement of nutritional quality and its effect on public health. The researchers, companies and hospitals involved in the different stages of the project uses the biodiversity of algae, as a source for bioactives using state-of-the-art cultivation and extraction technologies to obtain sufficient amounts of active molecules. Those extracts have already generated bioactivity hits that will result in novel algal-based, high-quality bioactive compounds at GMP grade and lower costs for dual purposes – IBD prevention and treatment in relevance to the food as well as the pharmaceutical industries.