Products Unique to Algae - New Frontiers Webinar

Algae are  photosynthetic micro-organisms  with a diverse morphology and a wide range of applications due to their ability to produced versatile metabolites.  A few algal species, for example Spirulina, Chlorella , Haematococcus or Dunaliella produce a wide range of  secondary metabolites for the development of  healthier food products. These compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, terpenoids and phenazines are being used in various sectors such as food, feed aquaculture, biomedicine, veterinary medicine, cosmetic industries and healthcare. In addition to these molecules algae also contain proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, polysaccharides and phycobiliproteins.  Generally unbalanced growth conditions such as light regime and nutrient deprivations are the main environmental conditions affecting the content of these compounds.  However some of these ingredients occur and are produced also by other  organisms; plants, fungi, microbes. Thus we intend in this webinar to discuss mainly molecules or cell constituents which typically are found mainly in algae, such as phycobiliproteins (phycocyanin; phycoerythrin) specific polysaccharides (sulfated ones) and some antiviral compounds (i.e.Griffithsin) or antibiotic one (i.e. chlorellin).   We do hope that the know-how discussed and presented in this webinar will increase the demand for these special molecules derived from algae and will further boost their integration into our daily life consumption.