Find out how our research is unravelling some of plant sciences most enduring mysteries as well as tackling major global challenges. Understanding microbial activity boosts production of natural blue food colouring Dr Andrew Free, Dr Alistair McCormick, Dr Attila Molnar and ScotBio Consumer awareness and pressures on more natural and safe food additives has increased demand for natural and safe colourings. This is a fast expanding market and collaboration between a Scottish company (ScotBio) and our academics, has led to research that resulted in the yield optimisation and increased purity and quality of blue phycocyanin from cyanobacteria for sale in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The team was able to break through critical technical and scaling barriers for the production of their analytical grade C-PC, now known as ScotBio Blue. Through this collaboration the company was able to adopt new processes and produce a high value, better quality product. Consequently, investment in the company has increased and has led to partnerships with other companies. The academia/industry team also won the 2019 Scottish Life Sciences Award for Best Innovative Collaboration for pioneering work on natural blue colourants. This collaboration has also led to the development of a successful project funded by BBSRC as well as IBioIc funding. Read the case study Plant stem cell culture is used for the manufacture of biological products Prof Gary Loake and Unhwa Corp Our researchers set up a successful collaboration with the Korean Biotech company Unhwa Corp. Gary Loake’s team used novel technologies developed at the University of Edinburgh to isolate and culture cambial meristematic cells (CMCs). The newly developed technology provides a platform for the cost-effective, environmentally friendly and sustainable production of plant stem cells. This opened up new opportunities for the company who saw their turnover double as a result of the collaboration. The University of Edinburgh and Gary’s team had a unique expertise that was of interest to Unhwa and this was the stepping-stone for the collaboration to start. This work allowed the company to confirm and validate the proprietary CMCs, which are now trademarked (Patent WO/2012/052854). The collaboration has provided a significant commercial advantage to the company and has resulted in a significant publication in Nature Biotechnology (92 citations and 605 article accesses). The paper was also widely reported in popular press and the global broadcasting channel Discovery. Subsequently Gary was the Science Advisor of the company and consulted on future research strategy. Further research funding from Unhwa was also provided and benefited our researchers. Related links Partnerships Facilities This article was published on 2024-06-17
