Operating Group

Vegetable Bioactive Ingredients

Project Description

Plant biotechnology constitutes a set of powerful and necessary tools for the progress of the agri-food, nutraceutical and cosmetic sectors. In the Region of Murcia, where agri-food is one of the most important sectors, the development and promotion of biotechnological lines of research are critical.

In this sense, the most applied line of research carried out by the Research Group of the University of Murcia led by Dr. Mª Ángeles Pedreño called E005-01: Biofactory plants: production of bioactive compounds and proteins related to plant defense and the patented procedures that derive from it have aroused and generated a growing interest on the part of companies dedicated to the agro-food and cosmetic sector, which has materialized in obtaining numerous research contracts with said companies.

As a result of this activity, we have been recognized as a knowledge transfer group by the Experimental Sciences area under the name of Plant Bioactive Ingredients..

All this research has favored the valorization of our results and their transfer to dermo-cosmetic and agro-industrial companies, since one of our main objectives is focused on the generation of bioactive ingredients without the use of land for the cultivation of fruit and vegetable products, so The most important added value of our technology transfer to the private sector lies in its orientation towards economic and environmental sustainability through these new in vitro cultivation strategies that allow us to protect natural resources and avoid the emission of gases into the environment and, therefore, do not exacerbate the climate change crisis we are currently facing.

María Ángeles Pedreño – CIBB2020

María Ángeles Pedreño SECyT 16

Goals

Design strategies aimed at improving plant production based on the circular bioeconomy and oriented towards environmental sustainability to mitigate, by reducing the consumption of inputs (chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides), its negative impact on food and the environment .
Launch a new line of biostimulant and antifungal products based on the use of extracts of biological origin (by-products derived from plants or other organisms and extracts enriched in bioactive compounds and defense proteins, obtained through in vitro plant cultures). to achieve an increase in the tolerance and/or resistance of plants to multiple abiotic stresses and/or fungal infections in order to improve crop productivity, avoiding economic losses in the agricultural sector, improving germination processes, growth and development of the seedlings in the seedbeds, and to obtain a temporary advance of the harvests in the national and international markets, strengthening the companies of the agricultural sector interested in the development of biostimulants and natural fungicides.
Continue exploiting plant cell cultures as biofactories for the production of ingredients for the preparation of new foods, natural cosmetics and nutraceuticals, which are beneficial to human health.

All of our goals are based on activities that comply with the Do Significant Harm (DNSH) principle, in all its aspects. In fact, the spirit of this initiative is focused on mitigating the effects of climate change and contributing to the objectives of the European Green Deal (EU Green Deal), since biostimulant and/or biofungicide formulations will be designed to reduce yield losses. of crops in the field, increasing their efficiency and productivity. In addition, obtaining bioactive extracts with in vitro culture techniques is in line with this principle, since a greater production of bioactive compounds is obtained using fewer plants, contributing to the conservation of endangered plant species and their availability. for future generations, the plant extracts obtained by in vitro culture guarantee that the material is not contaminated since the plant cells are grown under aseptic conditions, free of microorganisms, field cultivation is not required, therefore they release land that is destined for the production of food crops, it is not necessary to irrigate the crops, favoring the economy of water and the extraction processes are simple and require less organic solvents, which contributes substantially to the maintenance of the environment.