Brightseed expands innovation programs to boost new synbiotic development

24 May 2024 --- Biosciences company Brightseed introduces Rapid Profiling and its recently expanded Microbiome discovery programs for its partners to unlock novel health insights for product development and accelerate commercialization timelines.

By adding Rapid Profiling to its partner programs, Brightseed can deliver actionable insights into ingredients’ phytochemical and bioactive composition in six to eight weeks, accelerating the clinical validation and commercialization roadmap. 

The company’s Microbiome discovery programs include the identification of microbially-derived bioactives and their health benefits, which occur when fermented ingredients or prebiotics interact with gut bacteria. Brightseed is currently collecting and analyzing fermented sources for these programs. 

“Our microbiome programs, which also include synbiotic product development, are tailored for companies vested in bringing novel and clinically validated products into their food and consumer health portfolios,” says David Brown, Brightseed’s VP of business development. 

“Brightseed’s innovation programs and our pipeline of bioactive ingredients are designed to empower the nutrition industry with differentiated and efficacious solutions that target key consumer health areas, including gut health, metabolic health and cognition.”

Synbiotic benefits 
As consumer and industry interest in probiotics grows, Brown stresses the benefits of synbiotics — a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics that benefit the host by improving the survival and activity of beneficial microorganisms in the gut.

He highlights: “Synbiotics provide more robust consumer benefits than probiotics alone.” 

Brightseed’s expanded innovation programs will leverage its Forager AI platform and its bioactives and health areas coverage. 

Brown explains: “Forager allows us to predict bioactives resulting from the interaction between bacterial strains and natural ingredients, which is an exciting application of AI in microbiome research and innovation.”

“With Rapid Profiling and our expanded Microbiome capacity, we are making the expansion into new health areas more accessible for our partners and diversifying how they can investigate bioactives in their existing products, supply chains, side streams and waste streams.” 

The company will present how it uses AI to decode the microbiome at the upcoming IPA World Congress + Probiota America 2024. 

Bioactive AI
Brightseed co-develops novel bioactive ingredients in specific health areas with its partners or uses its Forager AI platform to investigate the health potential of a partner’s existing ingredients. This platform has mapped over seven million compounds from plants, fungi and bacterial strains across 23 human health areas. 

The company highlights that many bioactives are unexplored due to challenges associated with their discovery and isolation. Several bioactives can only be accessed through complex interactions between food and gut flora. 

Through machine learning and metabolic profiling, Forager can identify bioactive compounds mapped to scientifically validated health benefits and biomarkers. The platform also uses generative AI models by learning patterns of validated training data from “nature’s chemistry.” 

Earlier this year, Brightseed and Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods introduced Manitoba Harvest Bioactive Fiber — a fiber solution promising to support gut health, digestion, weight management and reduction of bloating and gas. 

The company has also received grants to support undernourished pregnant and nursing women. It aims to build a Forager proof-of-concept AI program to address environmental enteric dysfunction. Under this condition, gut barrier function is often compromised, which could impair nutrient absorption.  

Edited by Jolanda van Hal