NATFORCE
Project NatForce is financed through the FP7 network of the EU (REGPOT-2007-1) and aims to the reinforcement of the scientific and technological potential of LNPC/NKUA.The main objective is to facilitate the expansion and transformation of an existing high-quality Research and Education entity to a Natural Product Research Center comparable to other European centers distinguished for scientific excellence.
Under the frame of NatForce project it will take place:
· Upgrading of research equipment aiming to acquire new state of the art spectroscopic powerful instruments, and upgrade the existing ones.
· Transfer of know-how and recruitment of experienced researchers aiming to transfer the necessary technical knowledge to the personnel of the LNPC. Developing strategicpartnerships and network activities with the well established research European Centers, through the organization of seminars and short term visits.
· Dissemination and promotional activities aiming to expose the LNPC activities and results to the international scientific and industrial environment. This could be achieved through the organization of workshops, participation in conferences, publications and other activities focused to other regional stakeholders in Greece and in the neighboring countries of Southeast Europe.
AGROCOS
Project AgroCos is financed through the FP7 network of the EU (Prospecting for novel plant-produced compounds, KBBE-2009-3-1-04) and aims to the discoveryof plant derived small molecules with potential as new cosmetic and agrochemical agents.
These compounds will derive from plants originating from major biodiversity hotspots in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific regions. The starting point of the project will be a diversity-oriented natural product library of 500 compounds, from which promising scaffolds are identified by a screening.
Chemotaxonomy and chemodiversity oriented collection of plant material, the generation of a library of 3600 extracts, and a state-of-the-art technology platform for miniaturized natural product discovery will generate focused sub-libraries around these privileged scaffolds. Further evaluation of these sub-libraries will lead to the development of novel products in agrochemistry and/or cosmetics with new or improved properties over existing active ingredients.
OLITEC
Project OLITEC is financed through the FP7 network of the EU (The People Programme, Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways, No. 230763)
OLITEC aims to translate scientific knowledge on specific olive constituents through a feasible industrial process to a technological prototype that could be further developed to commercial products (food supplement and/or pharmaceutical).
The main scientific and technological objectives of this project are:
· to develop extraction methods based on the combination of emerging new technologies for the preparation of enriched extracts from olive tree leaves
· to study the chemical composition of the extracts and their variation, depending on the extraction processes, the botanical origin
· to identify bioactive small molecules from the highly complex extract matrix with modern techniques (Centrifugation Partition Chromatography-CPC, HPLC-MS or NMR),
· to evaluate the biological activity of the pure isolated compounds and of the extracts
· to scale up the best extraction process and
· to study the feasibility of the development of a new commercial product and design the next steps of OLITEC exploitation.
OLITEC is a collaborative research project between academic community and industry focusing in the advance of new technologies and their integration in the process for the development of new products from the olive tree with therapeutic or preventive potential (phytomedicines, food supplements).