The InnCoCells project has a large collection of different plants to work with
We have screened a large panel of plants and have identified about 50 species that produce valuable cosmetic ingredients and can be cultivated in a sustainable manner
Image credit: lychees by B. Navez (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Development of cultivation strategies
The InnCoCells consortium has access to many different plants, some of which have not yet been cultivated as cell suspension cultures or organ cultures for the production of cosmetic ingredients. We have tested a large panel to see which are compatible with cell and organ culture platforms while still producing sufficient quantities of the target metabolites.
Some examples are shown below – click on the images for more information.
Although we will be looking mostly at cell cultures, some species can be tested as whole plants using different combinations of light wavelengths to induce the production of specific metabolites, as shown below for ginger and aromatic ginger plants grown in hydroponic culture.
Optimization and scale up
Some of the plants available to the consortium can already be cultivated as small-scale cell cultures. For these species, we are looking to optimize growth and the production of target molecules, and to achieve larger-scale cultivation.
Some examples are shown below – click on the images for more information.
Ready for extraction and testing
The most advanced plant resources in the project are already optimized and we will be testing advanced extraction methods to isolate cosmetic ingredients. In many of these cases, we are not only using the plants but also the waste products and side streams from existing agricultural processes.
Some examples are shown below – click on the images for more information.
