Aquapharm, Medical Research Council Develop EndoSeaRch

EDINBURGH, ScotlandBiotechnology firm Aquapharm partnered with the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research unit (MRC HNR) in Cambridge to evaluate the potential of a new approach to digestive health called EndoSeaRch.

The two parties are seeking to modulate certain bacterial populations of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract with orally delivered synthetic minerals in models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). If the initial studies with the MRC are successful, Aquapharm CEO Simon Best hopes to extend this work to create new digestive health-promoting products. These may include food supplements and ingredients for humans and farm animals, as well as novel therapeutic agents that could lead to better treatment, or even prevention of, human gut diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and IBD.

EndoSeaRch represents the first in-vivo application for SeaRch, a patented Aquapharm technology for stimulating bacteria that form bio-films to maximize the range of biochemicals they produce in response to oxidative stress. The agents used by Aquapharm to induce stress include a variety of trace elements such as iron, copper and manganese, which are essential micronutrients of the human diet. The biochemicals produced by the bacteria include a wide range of natural anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant agents, which formed the historic defenses used by the organisms to overcome environmental and competitive stresses.

Aquapharm is already developing a number of marine extracts as novel ingredients for food and skin-care products, and evaluating individual compounds derived from them as novel drugs.

The Aquapharm team now plan to oxidate stress in gut microbes, without stressing the surrounding human cells and tissues. This led Aquapharm to professor Jonathan Powell at the MRC, whose research group has developed a new class of synthetic bio-minerals that Aquapharm believes are likely to have the desired properties.

"This collaboration is timely because, on the one hand, there is rapidly growing interest in the gut microbiome as a potential route to improving human health," Best said. "On the other hand, the health claims associated with the current food products available to modify it, such as prebiotics and probiotic live cultures, have so far been largely rejected. Current bio-pharmaceutical approaches are either expensive and/or of limited efficacy. The time is ripe to try a novel strategy to modify the biome, such as EndoSeaRch."