Ayana Bio Awarded National Institutes of Health Grant to Harness Neuroprotective Benefits from Plant Cell-Cultivated Saffron

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May 01, 2024, 07:00 ET

Funding will support Ayana Bio's research examining the neuroprotective benefits of saffron for Huntington's Disease and other neurological and age-related diseases

BOSTON, May 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ayana Bio, the plant cell technology company dedicated to creating sustainable bioactives for consumer products, has received a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support Ayana Bio's research into the production of saffron's neuroprotective bioactives through plant cell cultivation.

Clinical studies demonstrate saffron's beneficial effects across a range of neurological and age-related diseases, such as depression, anxiety and Alzheimer's disease. Saffron's neurological effects are also proven to aid in weight loss by increasing satiety, making it a powerful health ingredient with interconnected benefits.

The $300 thousand NIH grant will fund Ayana Bio's research to identify which complex of saffron bioactives can consistently demonstrate the highest neuroprotective benefits, specifically for Huntington's disease. The company will use its high-throughput synthetic biology capabilities of sequencing, multi-omics technology, and analytical chemistry to explore and select the best plant cell lines. The research will also address how plant cell cultivation can enhance the production of saffron's bioactives by running a pre-clinical study on a C. elegans model of Huntington's disease. Identifying a standardized complex of bioactives that can be produced consistently will allow researchers to study saffron's health benefits more effectively for a range of diseases.

Plant cell cultivation is a means to create plant materials without growing plants in the ground. Saffron cells will be grown in temperature-controlled, stainless steel tanks that create a reliable source of real saffron – and its beneficial bioactive complex – bypassing the quality issues that come from the constraints of conventional agriculture. Traditional saffron production requires up to 170,000 flowers to produce just one kilo of saffron, making it a prohibitively expensive health and wellness ingredient. Challenges associated with growing saffron are amplified by the worsening effects of climate change, which drive crop failures in the already constrained supply chain.

"Saffron is a super ingredient for our brains—not just our taste buds—but it remains untapped due to its exorbitant cost," said Frank Jaksch, CEO of Ayana Bio. "Today's grant from the NIH is a validation of plant cell cultivation's ability to unlock botanicals like saffron's powerful benefits and improve health outcomes."

The NIH grant comes on the heels of Ayana Bio's joint development agreement with Wooree Bio to develop plant-cell derived saffron for health and wellness products in the South Korean market. For more information about Ayana Bio and their plant cell cultivation ingredients, please visit www.ayanabio.com.

This research is funded by the NCCIH and NIH under award number 1R43AT012848-01.

Disclaimer:
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

About Ayana Bio
Ayana Bio uses plant cell cultivation to grow plant materials without growing them in the ground. Ayana Bio focuses on creating ingredients that leverage plant bioactives for health and wellness products. Plant cell-derived ingredients solve many of the sustainability, purity, safety and ethical concerns in current botanical supply chains. Ayana Bio collaborates with global industry leaders in food, beverage, dietary supplement, sports nutrition, animal care and skin care to bring the power of plant bioactives to the mass market at scale. Ayana Bio has partnered with the global leader in synthetic biology, Ginkgo Bioworks, to select, optimize and scale plant cell-cultivated ingredients. Ayana Bio is backed by prestigious investors, Viking Global and Cascade, to democratize nature's bioactives. For more information visit www.ayanabio.com.

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SOURCE Ayana Bio