LASRA Collagen Symposium 2023

Keynote: Commercialisation in Biotechnology

Dr. Selwyn Yorke
Executive Director, SCY Consulting Ltd.

Collagen is the most abundant source of protein in the human body. It binds cells and tissues together, and it maintains the body’s integrity, shape and strength.

There is growing consumer interest in collagen-based products, obtained from various animal sources and forecasts indicate future growth in both bovine and ovine collagen for food and beverages, nutraceutical applications, cosmetics and high-value medical applications. Compounded Annual Growth (CAGR) of over 5% is predicted for the next decade, with an estimated market worth over $4.0bn USD by 2025.

It is collagen’s potential bioavailability which has accounted for growth in both cosmetic and medical applications, particularly for skin-care products that “revitalise” and “renew”. Tissue regeneration and bone substitution are just some of the options for medical collagen devices. The potential for 3D printable biomaterials based on collagen is an emerging area of interest.

Regulatory issues with Collagen-based Nutraceuticals

Samantha Gray
CEO BioEquitas

Nutraceuticals are natural, bioactive chemical compounds that have health-promoting, disease-preventing or general medicinal properties. This category encompasses vitamins, minerals, herbal supplements, and certain animal products. Nutraceuticals also include “functional foods” – i.e. foods that tout a specific health benefit based on their ingredients.

It is clear that the exciting prospects around “functional foods” and nutraceuticals is pushing discovery of new substances that promise to extend a healthy life. The greatest challenge remains in the regulatory arena, which while encouraging research and development into products of proven health benefits, has the task on ensuring claims are truthful and nonmisleading to protect public health and maintain the public’s confidence.

Morning Tea

A quick refreshment break

Capturing value from collagen research: Binding ideas to an Intellectual Property matrix

Dr. Jon Ashen
Owner/Principal Blue Penguin IP

Among the many drivers that push scientists to cutting edge research, is the desire to capture commercial value from the time and effort spent.  One option for effecting this capture is to identify, develop and protect the intellectual property being created as your work is carried out.  But how?   In this session we will look at what may constitute relevant intellectual property to researchers in the collagen space.  We will also consider how you might identify potential opportunities to develop and protect your intellectual property, how to avoid some common pitfalls encountered by researchers in trying to protect their intellectual property, and how the development and protection of your intellectual property may be of value to you and your organization.

Ngā Hononga/Strategic relationships

Tipene Merritt
Research Development Adviser (Maori), Victoria University of Wellington

The Māori economy includes a range of groups and businesses who identify as Māori. Māori own a significant proportion of assets in the primary sectors including: fishing; forestry; agriculture; and horticulture. As the Māori economy grows, so too does interest in research and an interest in the development of strategic relationships generally.

Lunch Break – Chancellor 3

A selection of meat, vegetarian and gluten-free options will be available from the buffet

Keynote: Gelatine Properties and Food Applications

Dr. Michael Parker
Senior Lecturer, Massey University

Gelatine is a water soluable animal-based protein with unique properties.  Such properties are utilized in desserts, cadies and bakery products, jellied meats, dairy products as well as protective coatings.  What are these properties and what is the basis of them?  How can these properties be manipulated for specific applications?

Collagen as a food supplement for cats and dogs

Dr. Emma Bermingham
Senior Research Scientist, AgResearch

Emma’s research interests include the health implications of animal products, including co-products on the health of cats and dogs. She has a particular focus on gastro-intestinal health. The times are long gone when pets were fed with the scraps from our plates and cooking pots. Nowadays, loving owners are ready and able to spend quite significant amounts on premium pet foods. As a result, the market for companion animal nutrition is incredibly dynamic, offers huge potential and continues to show year-on-year growth.

For most of us, our pets are so much more than domestic companions. They’re important family members that need high-quality food just as much as we do and increasingly pet owners request ingredients with validated health and nutrition benefits for our pets.

This presentation will focus on the role of collagen for the health of our pet cats and dogs.

Afternoon Tea – Chancellor 3

A selection of beverages and savouries/snacks will be available in Chancellor 3.

Collagen Product Development from NZ Sourced Raw Materials

Dr. Cynthia Sun
Callaghan Innovation

In the past 20 years, Cynthia’s research has spanned from enzyme/protein analysis, purification and biotransformation of novel conjugates from natural sources, to more recently bioactive compound identification and extraction.  In 2004, Cynthia joined the Integrated Bioactive Technologies (IBT) group at Callaghan Innovation, whose mission is to assist NZ firms to transform biological resources (e.g. meat, dairy, plant, seafood) into high value products.

Collagen products sourced and made in New Zealand are still at the early stages of development, although we have seen a surge in collagen R&D activity in the past year.  This presentation will introduce the science capabilities within IBT teams in the area of collagen product development. Exemplar projects targeting collagen from both fish and land animal sources will be discussed to demonstrate our key expertise in helping NZ firms to fully utilise their collagen resources and convert these into high value products.

Pre-Dinner Network Event – Sponsored by Bioresource Processing Alliance

Canapés and refreshments will be provided in Chancellor 3

Symposium Dinner

Buffet dinner and carvery, plus a selection of red and white wines to be served in Chancellor 1

Morning Coffee & Registration

Morning coffee, tea and soft drinks served in Chancellor 3

Keynote: ActivLayr – a collagen delivery platform for skin health and beauty.

Iain Hosie
CTO, Revolution Fibres

Iain is a scientist (BSc, Biochemistry) with a background in environmental health, government policy, product development and sales. Iain is a passionate advocate for nanofibre manufacturing and its commercialization in many sectors.

Iain is the co-Founder and Technical Director of Revolution Fibres. Iain has been deeply involved in nanofibre production and the development of many unique nanofibre products in the past ten years – including ActivLayr™, a collagen based textile used in cosmetics. Iain co-founded Revolution Fibres in 2009 and led the business from 2012-2020, and has recently moved to the Technical Director role.

Iain will give a history of the development of ActivLayr, commercialization of a collagen product in Asia and beyond, the learnings and requirements for collagen going forward, and new opportunities ahead.

NZ needs more than the Kardashian’s to sell collagen

Dr. Matthew Cumming
Senior Scientist, Plant and Food Research

Globally, the popularity of collagen is reaching momentous heights, with no signs of slowing down. Its versatility and functionality mean that collagen is being used in a wide array of industry sectors (foods, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, biomedical).
At Plant & Food Research we have been researching marine collagen for 15+ years, building analytical capabilities for all collagens, developing lab and pilot-factory extraction methods towards high-value collagen-based products.
This presentation highlights the global stage, how it is essential that New Zealand creates added-value collagen to compete in this global market, and how science organisations such as Plant & Food Research can facilitate this.

Collagen – only half the story?

Dr. Simon Hinkley
Associate Professor

The Ferrier research institute focuses on carbohydrate organic chemistry, somewhat distinct from protein chemistry characterisation and utilisation. However, in biological systems the true nature of biomolecules is either a covalent protein – carbohydrate proteoglycan, or, in a complex matrix. In this talk three vignettes of research undertaken in our laboratories will be introduced highlighting our research where collagen is the focus, part of the solution, or the problem!

Collagen Research progress at LASRA

Dr. Sujay Prabakar
Science Leader

Through two major funded programmes, LASRA has targeted research across a diverse range of applications for collagen materials from waste streams from the hide and skin processing industry, as well as carrying out basic research to better understand the chemical composition of these waste streams and the fundamental structure of collagen biomaterials.

Dr Prabakar will provide an overview of this research and provide information on where we are moving and how industry can benefit directly from LASRA’s research.

Lunch Break

A range of warm and cold snacks, coffee, tea and juice. Served in Chancellor 3

Keynote: Designing gelatin-based bioinks for 3D Bioprinting and Regenerative Medicine

Prof. Tim Woodfield
Research Professor, University of Otago

Biofabrication and 3D bioprinting enables the generation of engineered constructs that replicate the complex 3D organization of native tissues via the automated fabrication of cell-laden bioinks, tissue modules, growth factors and/or bioactive agents. Gelatin-based hydrogels have become the most popular and regularly adopted base material in cell-laden bioinks used for 3D bioprinting given that they provide a highly hydrated network with cell adhesion domains, and are cytocompatible, enzymatically degradable and easy to modify. However gelatin alone is not able to function as a bioink or retain its shape required to support tissue regeneration and functionalisation techniques (e.g. gelatin-methacryloyl, GelMA) have been adopted to allow photocrosslinking of bioinks.

The major challenge for translational regenerative medicine is that the biofabrication window and processing requirements of current gelatin-based bioinks are narrow and vary significantly between multiple biofabrication methods. This requires the optimization of bioinks for each individual biofabrication technique and tissue type.

We describe the development and commercialisation of a platform visible light photoinitiator system for gelatin-based bioinks using ruthenium/sodium persulfate (Vis + Ru/SPS) and demonstrate efficacy across a range of biofabrication techniques, including extrusion bioprinting and high resolution digital light processing (DLP) lithography bioprinting. To increase the versatility and biofabrication window of bioinks, we developed photo-clickable thiol-ene based bioinks based on allylated gelatin (GelAGE) and gelatin-norbornene (GelNOR) combined with Vis + Ru/SPS crosslinking as platform bioinks and bioresins

Furthermore we demonstrate covalent incorporation of thiolated bioactive molecules such as heparin (HepSH) to promote bioactivity and enhance growth factor binding and increase tissue formation capacity. This talk describes our journey through development and application of these novel gelatin-based bioinks and crosslinking chemistry for to regenerative medicine strategies to treat damaged or diseased tissue such as bone, cartilage and vascular tissues.

Isolation and identification of MayDay, a bioactive decorin fragment derived from the extracellular matrix

Dr. Sandi Dempsey
Senior Scientist, Aroa Biosurgery

Sandi G. Dempsey¹, Christopher H. Miller^1,2, Julia Schueler³, Robert W.F. Veale¹, Darren J. Day², Barnaby C. H. May¹.

¹ Aroa Biosurgery Limited, Airport Oaks, Auckland, New Zealand,

² School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand,

³ Discovery Services, Charles River, Freiburg, Germany

During soft tissue repair, extracellular matrix proteins and their degradation products are known to affect physiological processes such as healing, angiogenesis and inflammation. We have developed a discovery platform using a decellularized extracellular matrix biomaterial to identify new bioactive factors from the extracellular matrix. Macrophage mediated processing of ovine forestomach matrix, a decellularized extracellular matrix biomaterial, led to the identification of a novel ~12 kDa chemotactic factor, termed ‘MayDay’, from the N-terminal of decorin. The recombinant MayDay protein was shown to be a chemotactic agent for mesenchymal stromal cells in vitro and in vivo. We hypothesize that the macrophage-induced cleavage of decorin, via MMP-12, leads to the release of the chemotactic molecule MayDay, that in turn recruits cells to the site of damaged tissue. This platform could be applied to discover other bioactive molecules from the complexity of soft tissue extracellular matrix.

Collagen-based medical devices – established industry offers opportunity for innovation

Dr. John Higgins
Director, Medical Collagen NZ Ltd.

The medical device industry is heavily regulated with a focus on patient safety.  Manufacturers of collagen-based medical devices must also demonstrate that safety includes consideration of zoonotic disease risk.

Novel devices offering rapid healing are now entering the market. We will discuss local collaboration to address international opportunity.