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Description
Physalia Physalis project aims to take advantage of the potential existing in one of the most dangerous and valuable marine species that occupy our oceans – the Portuguese-man-of-war, by developing a mass extraction process of collagen for commercial purposes (new products for medical and cosmetic industry). It is also intended to extract other toxins with interest for industries such as biomedicine and pharmaceuticals. For this, a consortium composed of 4 key entities was assembled: two Portuguese Research Centres (Centro de Biotecnologia dos Açores - University of Azores and Centro de Engenharia Biológica - University of Minho), one Norwegian Research Institute (Nofima - The Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research), and a Portuguese company dedicated to the creation and commercialisation of high-quality cosmetic products (Mesosystem).
The project will start by the optimization of the extraction of collagen and other toxins from the P. Physalis (A1). Subsequently, it would be required to prepare collagen oligopeptide-rich hydrolysates and perform its functional evaluation (A2) to assess the hydrolysates bioactivities. Then, Mesosystem will lead the development of cosmetic formulations and new products for skin regeneration (A3) using the collagen hydrolysates previously produced. Simultaneously, the extraction of other toxins will be assessed (A4), trying to identify toxins with potential to be applied in cosmetic and health industries. The laboratory work performed regarding the extraction of collagen will conduct to the development of a small pilot plant-system (A5) at Nofima facilities for mass-production of collagen. Finally, A6 is devoted to the project management and dissemination. Nofima will have a critical role in the execution of the pilot plants since they have the expertise and proper facilities that make it possible to carry out experiments and to test extraction and hydrolysis methods tested at lab scale in University of Minho.