Objective Objectives and content Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20: 5 n3) is a relatively rare polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA). EPA has been implicated as a remedy for a variety of diseases and syndromes, the major ones being prevention and treatment of various cancers, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases. At present, however, EPA is primarily used as a health food derived from marine cold water fish oil. While the quality of this source is adequate for the current uses, future pharmaceutical testing and use will require highly purified EPA (over 90%). Unfortunately, fish oil contains many other PUFAs besides EPA. The separation of EPA from such a mixture requires preparative HPLC, a technique which is very expensive and economically prohibitive on a large scale. Although the cost of algal oil is currently much higher than that of fish oil, in recent research (patented) we have shown that separation of EPA from the microalga Phaeodactylum tricornutum would be more economical than from fish oil. The higher the initial EPA proportion and the lower the content of other PUFAs, the need for HPLC is reduced and perhaps even eliminated. In contrast to other PUFA there is no convenient source of EPA from heterotrophic growth; thus, EPA can only currently be produced from autotrophic (photosynthetic) microalga which can be grown on a continuous basis. In this project, a novel integrated production system for obtaining highly purified EPA from microalga will be developed. This is the first time that all the disciplines involved in the industrial exploitation of microalga for pharmaceuticals are considered: from strain selection to product purification techniques to preformulation and preclinical trials. The scientific and technical challenge is to diminish the cost of the final high quality product down to a level that would make it attractive for identified new markets. In order to reach this objective: Overproducing strains of two microalga(Phaeodactylum and Monodus) and a cultivation method will be developed for the most efficient growth. New tubular photobioreactor technology will be used that could be scaled up for industrial microalga production and enable good EPA productivities on an annual basis in the closed reactors which will be established under the most favourable European outdoor conditions of S. Spain. The most suitable extraction and purification techniques (three step, a new t o step process and supercritical fluids technology, SFE) will be assessed for biomass downstream processing. The resulting highly purified EPA (>93%) will be used in preformulation and preclinical trials by our pharmaceutical partner. The feasibility of future developments for clinical trials will be derived from cost analysis of the production and processing steps. Particular attention in the project will be focused on the fundamentals of lipid biosynthesis and genetic improvements. The proposed novel organisms and the photobioreactors with their efficient modelling tools, in combination with new downstream processing, represents a significant step forward from the current state of the art technology and could be transferred from the scientific domain to the industrial one. The consortium comprises the research department of a pharmaceutical company which has pioneered the introduction of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) as a therapeutic agent; it has four pharmaceutical licensed lipid products and established the scientific credibility of PUFAs as drugs, and another company pioneer in the technology of extraction using SCF. The partners' expertise covers the complete spectrum of activities: production, analysis, control, purification, safety testing, derivation, preclinical and clinical evaluation, and marketing and experimentation and fine-tuning of process technology based on the use of SCF with different matrices, the university partners bring multi-disciplinary and complementary skills on photosynthesis and biological principles, on photobioreactors, on downstream processing, on PUFA biochemistry and on genetic improvement. Fields of science medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinflammatory diseasesmedical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsnatural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculeslipidssocial scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivitynatural sciencesbiological sciencesbotany Programme(s) FP4-BRITE/EURAM 3 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of industrial and materials technologies, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 0101 - Incorporation of new technologies into production systems Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator Universidad de Almeria EU contribution No data Address S/N,Ctra. Sacramento 04120 Almeria - la Canada de San Urbano Spain See on map Total cost No data Participants (6) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all BEN-GURION University of the Negev Research and Development Authority Israel EU contribution No data Address 84105 Beer-Shava See on map Total cost No data Exenia Group Srl Italy EU contribution No data Address Via Leonino da Gara 13 35020 Albignasego Pordenone See on map Total cost No data IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Prince Consort Road SW7 2AZ LONDON See on map Total cost No data KING'S COLLEGE LONDON United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Stamford Street 150 SE1 9NN LONDON See on map Total cost No data SCOTIA Pharmaceuticals Limited Development and Technology Centre United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Kingstown Broadway CA2 5DT Carlisle Cumbria See on map Total cost No data Università degli Studi di Firenze Italy EU contribution No data Address Piazzale delle Cascine 27 50144 Firenze See on map Total cost No data