TopoGEN hosts international researchers
A nano-scale material developed from an Amazonian tree nut that could have applications in industries as diverse as medicine, skincare and craft brewing is being developed in a lab right TopoGEN, a biotechnology business incubator operating in Buena Vista, is hosting PanoMatrix, a lab developing nano-cellulose from an Amazonian tree nut. The material could have applications in industries such as medicine, skincare, and craft brewing. The company is using this material to scale up production of a type of nano-celotose derived from the ivory nut, or tagua nut. Funding for the project was provided by former Ph.D. student at the Ohio State University, former professor from Quito, Ecuador, and former student at TopoGEN. TopoGen receives funding from state and federal grants, and contract research for pharmaceutical companies. The nano-Cellulose can also be used as a substrate to grow cells in a laboratory setting and improve wound healing.
Publicerad : 2 år sedan förbi Max R. Smith Times reporter i
A nano-scale material developed from an Amazonian tree nut that could have applications in industries as diverse as medicine, skincare and craft brewing is being developed in a lab right here in Buena Vista.
TopoGEN, the biotechnology business incubator operating in a facility on the grounds of Central Colorado Regional Airport, is hosting PanoMatrix as it works to scale up production of a type of nano-cellulose derived from the ivory nut, or tagua nut.
“I like to think we've evolved into more of an incubator for high-tech businesses. We have the ability to sponsor research from the federal government, just like the University of Colorado at Boulder, MIT, CalTech, whatever, we have those same privileges,” said TopoGEN CEO Mark Mueller. The lab gets most of its funding from state and federal grants as well as contract research for pharmaceutical companies.
A former Ph.D. student at the Ohio State University contacted Mueller and put him in touch with a professor from Quito, Ecuador, who was on sabbatical at another Ohio school.
“Back in March, I believe, we applied for funding for this new concept to create a product called nano-cellulose. We brought in the scholar who invented this,” Mueller said. “We established a company called PanoMatrix.”
“It means 'the matrix for everything,' because it's a universal binder,” said Javier Carvajal-Barriga, who heads the biotechnology and entrepreneurial projects program at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. “You cannot stop imagining the applications of this material.”
Cellulose gives plant cells their rigid structure. Carvajal-Barriga’s sulfated nano-cellulose, which is patented in his home country and is seeking a patent in the United States, forms a “scaffold” of negatively charged cellulose particles, a matrix of pores that can trap and contain microorganisms and viruses.
“One bacterium could use one of these nanoparticles as an acupuncture needle, to put it in perspective,” Carvajal-Barriga said. “That's really small.”
In 2022, Carvajal-Barriga co-authored a paper published by the National Institutes of Health, which found these nanoparticles were effective in preventing infection by the COVID-19 virus and HIV-1.
While in the United States conducting this research, Carvajal-Barriga would spray a solution of nano-cellulose crystals and water around his nose and mouth while taking public transportation. “I was by myself, I was alone there, I was scared, and the only thing I had was nano-cellulose,” Carvajal-Barriga said. “I was doing that because I believed in it. That was before we demonstrated it in a lab.”
The nano-cellulose scaffold can also be used as a substrate to grow cells in a laboratory setting and to improve wound healing. Mueller said PanoMatrix has seen positive results over weeks of spraying nano-cellulose on difficult-to-treat ulcers in diabetic patients.
“It's not like a sterilization; it works kind of like your immune system works,” Mueller said. “It keeps out infection and at the same time it creates a kind of superstructure that repair-cell fibroblasts in a wound, for example, can migrate into and attach to and form new tissue.”
In the test tube, the nano-cellulose solution is a slightly viscous clear liquid. Hold a polarizing filter up to it and you see rainbow patterns, a property called birefringence. Put the substance on your skin and it forms a hydrating gel.
This property, along with the matrix’s ability to hold other molecules in place, caught the eye of skincare companies like Monastery Made, an upstart San Francisco company focused on natural products.
Carvajal-Barriga also believes the porous nano-cellulose matrix can be used to keep yeast cells from clumping together when brewing beer, drastically improving the efficiency of the fermentation and maturation process by pumping the unfermented wort through a column of yeast-bearing nano-cellulose.
“Fermentation and maturation together take about 25 days, normally. We could make the same in five or six days,” he said.
Carvajal-Barriga first discovered the material while looking for possible sources of ethanol biofuels derived from cellulose in the byproducts of Ecuador’s local agriculture.
“At that time I was looking at banana peel residues, oil palm, things we grow in the tropical zone, which are completely different than here in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said. “Not normal ethanol that comes from corn or sugar cane, but the residues of that. The so-called 'second generation' ethanol.”
That led him to the ivory nut, an extremely hard seed commonly used to make shirt buttons in the late 19th and early 20th century before the invention of durable plastics. Some high-end garment makers still use Ecuadorian tagua nut buttons. When carved into buttons, most of the seed is discarded, Carvajal-Barriga said, and using that waste to make nano-cellulose is “a very sustainable thing.”
Carvajal-Barriga sees PanoMatrix’s nano-cellulose as a first step in stimulating the industry of biotech entrepreneurship in his home country.
“This is a very special occasion,” he said. “A developing country is transferring technology to a developed country.”
Carvajal-Barriga is often asked why he is developing his product in the United States rather than in Ecuador, where he first discovered and patented it.
“Here, in this company, we have three potential applications. Three!” he said. “I couldn't find any company in Ecuador that wanted to make one single application.
“TopoGEN is a great place to start with because it's a completely different philosophy, ideas, economy,” he said.
“My students are so happy to have the opportunity to come and see the entrepreneurial work in the United States, in Columbus, Ohio, and here in Buena Vista,” Carvajal-Barriga said. “We are learning from the American system, and they are learning from the Ecuadorian biodiversity and potential.”
The program Carvajal-Barriga heads focuses not just on biotechnology research but its entrepreneurial application.
“We are designing a change, step by step, a change in the Ecuadorian economy and way of thinking,” he said.
For more information, read the expanded story at chaffeecountytimes.com.