COSMOFACTORY

Deanna: [00:00:00] This episode is about animal free proteins. It's about the popularity of beauty made with milk, about the latest in molecular biology, ingredient development, science, and production scale up, and it's about the teamwork behind the scenes at an ingredient startup. On today's episode of the Cosmo Factory Podcast, I am speaking with several experts from Velos Bio.
Welcome to Cosmo Factory. Thank you all [00:01:00] for being here. I, I really appreciate it. We're talking about more than one sort of science today about both protein production and something called molecular farming. I'm going to assume that we all know a little bit about protein. So my first question is simply, what is molecular farming?
Marypaz and Andres: Hi. Uh, well, my name's Andres. Um, I'm a bachelor in Bio Technology Engineering and I'm here the proteomics manager at Bio and. Well, uh, putting it simply molecular farming is, uh, uh, mainly editing a plant so we can produce something specific. Uh, it could be a protein or it could be a compound of interest.
And we leverage, uh, agriculture and crops to grow these plants, these edited plants, so we can extract something specific about, uh, about them. And we can have higher yields and, uh, more productivity this way.
Deanna: Perfect, perfect. And my understanding is that molecular farming is a type of, of [00:02:00] what we would call genomic biotechnology. And precision fermentation is another type of genomic biotechnology and, and is perhaps, um, more common in terms of ingredient production method methodology in our industry right now.
Can you explain how molecular farming is similar to or different from fermentation based biotech?
Marypaz and Andres: Of course, uh, yeah, you're right. Uh, precision fermentation is another form of, uh, producing, uh, different types of body molecules. However, the main difference is that precision fermentation usually, uh. It utilizes microbes such as bacteria or fungi, and they grow them inside a bar reactor, which is this huge tank, uh, with liquid on it.
So the bacteria or the, uh, microorganism can grow inside. And it's also producing this, uh, molecule of interest. And it differs, I mean. That way they're, they're similar, but it differs in the sense that in molecular farming, uh, you use [00:03:00] whole plants or parts of the plant to, uh, create this, uh, molecular of interest.
And while also costs are different, yields are different. And depending on the product you're trying to, uh, get out of, uh, one system will be more favorable than the other. So. So, yeah, I mean there are pros and cons, uh, between both of them.
Deanna: Sure. Sure. That makes sense. Um, and you suggested precision fermentation often uses a bacteria of. Organisms you are working with peas. Um, I'm curious, are you using the seed or the plant? Like a, like a sprout? And I, I wanna know too, uh, how did you choose peas? Is there something particular about, um, peas in general or, or the varieties you're working with, um, that make this type of ingredient production work well?
Marypaz and Andres: this question is for me. Uh, hi. My name is Mari Hernandez and I'm the manager of the upstream department. And for [00:04:00] this case we are using the seeds. One of the reasons we use seeds is that the seeds are easily bought and stored versus, uh, the whole plant. We can have seeds, uh, confined in a small space, eh, while also working with whole plants.
Eh, there's a. Uh, uh, difficulty behind transporting the logistics behind handling the whole plants, and they're also more susceptible to mechanical and environmental damage. So, uh, working with seeds allows us to keep our spaces. Smaller and just about handling the tempera temperature and humidity. other reason we also work with seed is that versus a whole plant, well, most of its metabolism is going through eh, photosynthesis, [00:05:00] which is very energy expensive.
And also production, production of seeds, which is instead a production of plants. So working with the seeds allows us to, um, utilize alti energy that will just go on to germination. To hijack this, uh, pathway for the protein we want to, any given protein we want to produce. While the whole plant will give us lower yields, do those, uh, do this characteristic of most of, most of energy point to s and to answer why we chose.
Piece. In this case, we chose yellow, yellow pea because they have a higher protein and lower fat content than other policies. Uh, and also there is the market side of it. Uh, pea are more well known by the public [00:06:00] and, and accepted. Uh, although we don't dismiss the possibility of using other pulses. Uh, as we have done so, uh, in the past and a, all of them have very different advantages and, and all but are very nutritious.
Deanna: Sure. No, that makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. From what I've learned, uh, molecular farming has been used in the pharmaceutical industry for a few decades now, but is becoming quite popular in food as well as in beauty, uh, which is why we're talking today. Um, because we know that what may at first appear to be competition is really an indication of opportunity and demand in the marketplace.
I will mention a couple of other cosmetic ingredient suppliers using molecular farming technology. I know of a French company called Core Biogenesis. Making recumbent proteins and peptides using molecular farming tech, uh, and chorea based. [00:07:00] INGR uses a molecular farming technology as well to produce a number of botanical actives, um, including ferrin, which other suppliers I think commonly sourced from Grapevine, sap.
Um, as, as you've suggested, and, and we. May have inferred from my intro to this episode. Your team is making proteins and the first ingredient your company introduced to the cosmetic ingredient marketplace is a dairy protein. Um, but clearly since we've been chatting about peas, um, you are not making this with any dairy animals.
Um, and, and we know the vegan movement is very important in beauty right now, but so to our dairy ingredients, um, so I, I do wanna share just. Um, a couple examples to put our conversation in, in some more context. There's a haircare brand called Morphos based out of Turkey that has a full line of milk therapy, hair products, um, formulated with 12 amino acids, all of which are derived from milk, uh, in skincare, bath and body care.
We have brands like Beak Mate [00:08:00] 10 0 2, formulating with Goat Milk. I know of another brand called B Pharma making skincare and body care with milk from buffalo. Uh, the same sort of buffalo milk used to produce buffalo mozzarella. And I've seen, I've seen brands formulating with donkey milk. Uh, I can't say for sure, but I would not be surprised if every type of milk that is being used as, um, a beverage or in food is also being used to make beauty products today.
You are not making biotech milk. You're making a milk protein, uh, proteins called cains. Tell me about Cains and, and why are these the proteins you chose to produce and, and go to market with first.
Margarita: Hey, thank you Di Diana. I will take this one. This is Marta Lopez. Everyone calls me Maggie, and I'm the CT of the company and I can respond easily this,
Deanna: Thank you.
Margarita: this question because this is part of. The, of the soul of the company, of the, his history of, of the company when we started like four years, years ago, as, as a startup, uh, the first question was, [00:09:00] which is going to be our protein, which is going to be our revision, our reason to be in this world of, of startups?
So we started making a proof of, uh, concept, uh, using. Diverse proteins. But, uh, actually we we're very focused on sustainability and the first thing we wanted to, to think is to have a high impact. So we wanted to decarbonize a part of the, the emissions that are, um, let's say, uh, made because of the, the cows and, and because of the farming.
So we, we, we, we started thinking, how can we help with this problem? So we talked about the, their proteins and casings are very complex proteins, and this is something our platform is very, uh. It's very good to make too, because plants, uh, have a lot of proteins, a lot of, uh, complex proteins and that can perform a lot of, uh, functions.
And when we think on canines, uh, we just are not thinking on one protein. [00:10:00] Imagine this. We have four proteins, four different proteins making a huge structure that is called misel, that has amazing properties because you can make the milk. You can make cheese, you can make creams. You, you can make foams.
You, you can have, uh, a lot of applications and even the, for example, uh, plastic recover and something like this. Uh. This is amazing. So, so we, we said, why not to take this, uh, this challenge? Why not to make, uh, or, or to challenge the platform to, to make this a huge, uh, misel. So we started with, uh, beans and chickpeas and then, uh, with, with yellow pea, and we succeeded with this.
So this is, uh, why we chose cases because it's challenging, it has an impact and it's very helpful for the planet.
Deanna: Excellent. That makes, that makes perfect sense. And you mentioned the, the functionality of Cains, but I'm, I'm curious particularly to about the function of Cains in haircare and skincare [00:11:00] or, or other cosmetic products.
Marypaz and Andres: Well. That one, it can seems act as natural moisturizers and conditioners thanks to the ability to wind, water and form a feel on the surface, on the skin, uh, just preventing transdermal water loss. And in the case of hair, it helps logging in the moisture and liver amino acids that strengthen the hair shaft.
Uh, also this film that s create, uh, helps shield the hair and skin from environment. Damage and pollution, uh, eh. In summary, they hydrate, protect and repair and also they are good for sensitive skin. All, all of this while being naturally derived, that's like being allowed gas.
Deanna: Yeah. Perfect. And for my formulator friends listening, I, I do wanna ask, are there any challenges with solubility, uh, from this ingredient?
Margarita: You can take this one ac Uh, actually depends because. [00:12:00] Uh, something we discovered in the, in our process is that depending of the application, you can have combinations of these four proteins. If you have the four cases, yes, of course, you, you will be challenged because of the solvability, because this is a property of the whole case in my cell.
But you can have combinations. For example, if you use beta ca in this very solu in water, if you use, uh. A combination of better and kappa casing. You can have very good emotions and you're not going to have any problem making emotions or forms or things like this. So it depends on the application. It's the kind of casing the that is suitable for this.
Deanna: Excellent. Excellent. And, um, I'll ask another question, um, for folks who might be thinking about formulating with these sorts of ingredients. Um, the, the cosmetic scientists I know seem to prefer the word odor, but I'm, I'm going to ask you, does your ingredient have any sort of dairy, like scent or a.
Yellow pea scent to it.
Margarita: This is a very good question because this is something that [00:13:00] has a challenge, uh, to us. Uh, like all the four years we, we have in here. Uh, actually we can say it could have a, a slight, the very note and as like, uh, let's say, uh, fresh, like. Grassy. No,
Deanna: Hmm.
Margarita: this is something that, but, but it's very slight because we need to take care of this.
Because if we think also in food market, we cannot have, uh, strong smells or strong, uh, flavors. We need to, to have a very neutral ingredient. So this is something we have, uh, been taking care of. Uh, all the, for, for years we have been working with Cains.
Deanna: Yeah. And have you gotten other questions from, from formulators, um, that, that you can share any notes on quickly?
Margarita: Another questions for formulators. It, it's about, about, for example, the, the performance. How, how it's working. For example, it's very different if we were making a shampoo or if we were making a, a cream or a serum. This is something that we have in challenge. Uh, it is this going to work for my formulation.
And, and we try to work with the, with the [00:14:00] formulators to understand which is the, their. Based on the formula and how our ingredient performs when we apply and we can have feedback and we can, uh, provide the solution, uh, according to the, the formulation people is testing.
Deanna: Yeah. Very good. Very good. Now, before we finish our conversation today, I do wanna go back to the production process. Have suggested this molecular farming technology is newer for the cosmetics industry. I am not going to ask you to share any technical secrets, but I'm hoping you can tell us how you are able to scale up production and maybe, maybe you can describe some of the challenges you've had to overcome.
Margarita: Yes, I can, I can tell you about it. We have a, a lot of challenges because, uh, when we start and any startup starts in, in small batches at the lab. And we have our limitations about the equipment. That was the first challenge when we went to some milligrams, two grams and two kilograms. It's very different because we need the [00:15:00] different equipments with different, uh, uh, challenges.
For example, most of the scientists are not, uh, process engineers. We had to hire people to understand about equipments, about connections, about how can we make this, uh, production in at scale. The second is, uh, how can we, um, adjust the process to have the same functionality when we think about kilograms than when we are working with milligrams?
This is something we have been challenged. Now we are producing at scale of, uh, let's say, uh, one to kilograms per month. We are on the, on the stage of, uh, going. To perhaps one or two tons per per month. So we, we are in this, uh, in this challenge right now.
Deanna: Mm-hmm. No, that's interesting. And, and maybe you've just kind of answered my next question, but is there anything else you can say about the reliability of the process as you scale up?
Margarita: Yeah, the, this is the, the [00:16:00] main challenge, I think because we have, uh, to validate that the process that we are scaling has the same functionality, the, the product and, uh, that we comply with the regulations, you know, that the safety and, and, and all the concerns we have. For the product the same at scale than in the lab.
Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. And I wanna know too, um, before we finish here, what else is possible with molecular farming? Are there are. More beauty ingredients in the pipeline.
Margarita: Yeah, for sure. We are thinking about peptides, about, uh, proteins such as celestine, uh, collagen peptides, and if you have some requests or, or you're curious to test if, if the platform can deliver any protein you are interested to, it's. It's, we are open to, to make the, the test.
Deanna: No, that's fantastic. And it sounds like what you've developed really does, um, lend itself to peptides and proteins, this particular sort of ingredient, whereas I mentioned [00:17:00] earlier, um, we know molecular farming is, is being used for some other botanicals and, and that sort of thing, but, but your platform is specific to proteins.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Margarita: At the moment we are focused on proteins. Yeah.
Marypaz and Andres: Yes. It's also specific to proteins, but there are some things that we can also work in the future because we have, like you said, all these botanical effects and we have disclosed that not only we can deliver these proteins, proteins, uh, they're usually like a 90% here. In our cases, it's coming from plants.
Uh, these plants are also infuses at the same time of these botanical extracts. Something that in the future we have to consider to study all these, um, uh, 10% behind of what is it and if it has more active biological functions. So, uh, it's very exciting. Uh, so it's a very exciting.
Deanna: that is exciting. Thank you so much. And [00:18:00] Andreas menopause. Maggie, this was an amazing conversation. I thank you for helping us learn about using plants to create dairy proteins and I thank you all for speaking with me today here on the Cosmo Factory Podcast. I,
Margarita: Thank you for the invitation, Deanna.
Marypaz and Andres: Thank you. Thank you.