Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The company Ocean NutraSciences developed a process to hydrolyses and extract active bio-ingredients from a waste product of fishery industry: herring milt. These ingredients are potentially rich in polyamines which have been shown to be active for heart protection and aging prevention in mammals, as well as for stress management in plants. There are therefore new market opportunities for herring milt hydrolysates. These implementations of the value of the products might not only help to develop a new industry, but also to fix an environmental problem by giving value to waste product. Even if these hydrolysates are already sold, new and solid scientific allegations will definitely give opportunities to expand the market. We are therefore planning to 1) Quantify the polyamins content of the three ingredients produced by ONS from herring milt hydrolysis and 2) Measure on specific health targets (cardio-vascular protection and aging process), different acknowledge biochemical and molecular markers on cellular models. We will particularly focus (but not exclusively) on oxidative stress and aging process. These analyses will be performed for two ingredients provided by ONS (the easiest one to produce and the one with highest content of polyamines). Documenting the biological activity of ONS's ingredients will definitely add value and allow new market development. We will also 3) Estimate the impact of the same two ingredients on stress managements in a model plant ""arabidopsis"". The plant will be exposed to osmotic and hydric stress. Organic Ocean expect to develop a niche market product for horticulture and agriculture industry to prevent stress impact, by providing ingredients that have been proven to attenuate the stress response.