Grant: Engage Grants Program

The principal objective of the project, is to do a preliminary technical feasibility test to check whether HA, the signature molecule of ESP, confers stability to marine-sourced serine proteases (from cold water fish) under room conditions. This would then allow to formulate two new lines of products: exfoliating agent (facial application) and debridement for after burns (home intervention without any medical prescription). Since dold water fish viscera are a rich source of digestive enzymes including serine protease trypsin and chymotrypsin, we will lok at the fishery industries coporduct as a source of new and valuable serin protease for the cosmeceutical industry. The specific objectives of the project are the followings: 1) Realise a scientific literature review of existing research regarding the extraction, purification and functional characterization of trypsin and chymotrypsin from cold fishes. 2) Identify the technologies being developed for the extraction, purification and functional characterization of trypsin and chymotrypsin from cold fishes and select an extraction and purification process to meet our needs. 3) Identify and quantify the marine biomass from commercial species that are avalaible in the eastern Canada. 4) Identify fish transformation factories from eastern Canada that are able to supply biomass and to offer the installations and conditions required by our industrial partner (collecting biomass, processing and preservation). 5) Identify possible partners with required industrial equipment, according to the desired production volumes (ex: Marine Biotechnology Research Centre (MBRC) at Rimouski). 6) Do a preliminary test to check the stability conferred by HA to serine proteases from cold fish under room conditions.