VIDA - Valorisation of Food Waste

Overview

Project Summary

The VIDA project focuses on the use of food waste to obtain vesicles with potential application in health, namely in the development of innovative strategies for drug delivery within the cell. The use of these vesicles, although still with incipient studies, has several advantages over widely exploited animal vesicles such as high stability, absence of toxicity, low immunogenicity and low cost, in addition to contributing to the reuse of parts of industrially undervalued plants thus strengthening the circular economy. However, little is known about the interaction and affinity of these vesicles with human cells, limiting their use in the clinic. Thus, this project aims to evaluate, for the first time, the interaction of plant vesicles containing an encapsulated natural compound, with potent receptor cells of different origins (cardiac, neuronal, pulmonary, gastrointestinal and hepatic). For this purpose it is intended to use an emerging technique in the area, fluorescence microscopy temporally resolved (FLIM), which will in real time, the subcellular behavior of the vesicles and realize if their origin conditions the affinity and interaction with the target cells. Globally, the VIDA project will open doors to new lines of multidisciplinary research, allowing the development of targeted and more effective drug delivery strategies.

Project Details