Innovate UK, in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, awarded the Scottish startup a ยฃ224,000 grant, which followed the announcement of its ยฃ100,000 SMART grant from Scottish Enterprise.
GBL is using the grants to accelerate the creation of its biomanufacturing platformย forย producingย high-value plant metabolites.ย
These metabolites, essential in various sectors like pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, typically require resource-intensive extraction. However, as CEO Dr. David McElroy told NutraIngredients, GBLโs platform aims to offer a more sustainable and efficient alternative, reducing environmental impact and enhancing accessibility.
โThese recent grants contribute towardsย the realization ofย that goal by helping us identify gene targets within product-specific plant cell culture lines that can be modified to increase the yield of the specific target ingredient being made within each product cell line,โ he said to NutraIngredients.ย
โIncreasing the yield of plant natural products enabled by these recent grants will help us realize our long-term goal of improving peopleโs lives through their access to sustainable and reliably produced plant ingredient products.โย
Advantage pointย โ
GBLย currentlyย serves various industries, including personal care, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, food, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture.ย
It uses primary vascular stem cells (VSCs) from plants, which differ from the dedifferentiated plant cells commonly used by others.
According to McElroy, these VSCs have several advantages for natural product manufacturing, including greater resistance to production stresses, better suitability for long-term storage, and higher yield of the desired product.
Climate change poses significant challenges to traditional harvesting methods for high-value plant metabolites, leading to drier conditions, reduced water and land availability, and increased fungal pests, all of whichย reduceย plant yields.
Green Bioactives’ Plant Cell Culture Technology aims to offer a solution by using bioreactors to grow plant cells under optimized conditions, free from climate-related stresses, ensuring consistent and efficient production of targeted plant ingredients.
Growing plant cells in bioreactors ensure consistent, sustainable, and local production, unlike traditional methods that involve lengthy growth periods and environmentally harmful harvesting practices, McElroy explained.
How does it work?โ
The Plant Cell Culture Technology platform involves several key steps.
Plant materials from species capable of producing the desired natural product are identified, andย then stem cell tissues are isolated from these plants and are cultured on solid media with specific plant hormones to encourage cell proliferation, forming a mass of cells called a callus.ย
Technicians then transfer the callus into a liquid,ย where itย grows into a cell suspension culture, increasing cellular biomass. Next, stressor agents mimic natural conditions that prompt the plant to produce protective compounds.
Technicians finally purify and separate the target ingredients from the other components in the liquid cell suspension culture, using them for product formation.ย
Product portfolioย โ
The firm’s portfolio includesย two ingredients for topical skin care products: GBL-Skin Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabraโ) providing theย antioxidant benefits of licorice plant to promote skin brightening properties; andย GBL-Skinยฒ Saponin (Quillaja saponariaโ),ย produced from cells of the Chilean Soap Bark Tree to act as aย natural emulsifier for use in cosmetic products.ย
It also includes GBL-Memory1, a patented ingredient complex combining 200mg of Fructooligosaccharides with 400mg of L-theanine, developed toย offer improvement inย cognitive function, specifically memory.