Bioactive screening and profiling

Work Package 3: Bioactive screening and profiling

Work package three deals with the validation and determination of the bioactivities of marine origin molecules and fractions and is the responsibility of the PI, Prof. Paul Ross. This work package will use a range of methods including model systems, cell cultures, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, computational biology and metabolomics to create a more detailed bioactive profile of candidate resources.  These techniques will be used to examine the resources for bioactive potential under a number of defined biological activities i.e., antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiinfective, antiproliferative, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory and prebiotic/bifidogenic activities.

Key activities include:

• Identification of bioactive fractions/molecules/extracts with bifidogenic and prebiotic activities in animal models (pig)
• Identification of bioactive fractions with anti-inflammatory (with a  view to identifying anti-cancer agents) and antioxidant activities
• Identification of antimicrobial and anti-infective agents
• Identification of satiety inducing, anti lipidogenic agents and anti-diabetic agents

Other Researchers on this Package

The researchers involved in this work package are found in four of the NutraMara institutes and include:

• Mr. Kenneth Collins
• Ms. Sonja Nitecki
• Mr. Anthoney O'Sullivan
• Prof. Torres Sweeney
• Prof. Nora O’ Brien