Valorization of fucoidans extracted from the culture of the microalga Haslea ostrearia for the cosmetics sector

For more than four years, in collaboration with Professor R. Tremblay of the University of Quebec at Rimouski, IBK has been working on the valorization of blue water resulting from the culture of a benthic diatom, Haslea ostrearia. Several bioactive compounds can be extracted from this blue water, including a type of fucoidan. Fucoidans are sulphated polysaccharides generally obtained from brown algae but also present in diatoms. After several research works on the production of microalgae as well as on the characterization and purification of fucoidan, the company would like to evaluate its potential as a cosmetic active. A first series of tests carried out in vitro, demonstrated that the crude extracts had good anti-aging, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, which makes them an active ingredient of choice for the cosmetics sector. The main objective of this project is to scale the extraction and purification of fucoidan from Haslea's culture to then validate the bioactive properties of the purified extracts for commercialization of the active. This involves (1) technological transfer and scaling up of the production of blue water and microalgae in our production systems; (2) scale up the purification protocols developed jointly with UQAR with our equipment and (3) validate the bioactive properties of the purified extracts in our in vitro validation platform on reconstituted skin plate.