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academies
August 16-17, 2018 | Copenhagen, Denmark
Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing
International Conference on
Journal of Archives of Industrial Biotechnology | Volume 2
Bioprospecting for microalgae strains with commercial applications
Patrick J McGinn, Fabrice Berrue, Shabana Bhatti and Stephen J B O’Leary
National Research Council of Canada, Canada
T
he National Research Council (NRC) of Canada is currently
conducting applied R&D in the microalgae biotechnology
with the longer-term goal of working with industry to develop
new and sustainable bioproducts from algal biomass for
commercial applications. A library comprised of nearly
430 strains of microalgae, currently held at the NRC’s Algal
Biorefinery R&D facility in Ketch Harbour, Nova Scotia has
been collected and screened for growth rate and biomass
production over the past several years. The strain library is a
living resource of material with potential applications in many
industrial sectors including nutraceuticals/pharmaceuticals,
functional foods, agriculture/aquaculture feeds, platform
chemicals, soil products/fertilizers among others. With the
aim of supporting commercialization of value-added products
of microalgal origin, we have undertaken a strain-by-strain
biochemicalcharacterizationofthelibraryusingcustomsolvent
extraction and fractionation methods followed by separation
and metabolite analysis by HPLC linked to high-resolution
mass spectrometry. These data are processed and compiled
into ‘factsheets’, each one of which provides a high-level
overview of the general macromolecular composition of that
particular strain and includes amino acid and triacylglyceride
profiles, intact lipid class analysis and pigment composition in
addition to other primary data. This approachwill be discussed
within a bioprospecting context in the search for the best
‘fit-for-purpose’ strains for targeted industrial applications.
e:
patrick.mcginn@nrc.gc.ca