Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Duckweed based nutritional supplement |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Focus area : | Food Science |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Sowjanya Sree Kandregula, Central University Of Kerala, Kasargod, Kerala |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2026 |
Contact info : | ksowsree@gmail.com |
Equipments : | UV-VIS Spectrophotometer
Bench top cooling centrifuge |
Details
Executive Summary : | The present project proposal entitled Duckweed based nutritional supplement is focused on Goal 2 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, undernourishment. Working towards development of a nutritional supplement, which aims both at biofortification and bioavailability of nutrients. For that goal the use and efficiency of a plant system on the basis of duckweed, also called water lentils, will be evaluated. Duckweeds are fast growing, aquatic flowering plants (family: Lemnaceae), which have been shown to have high nutritional quality for use as human food and have been traditionally eaten in several Southeast Asian countries. These two features of duckweeds will ensure fast production of high amounts of biomass with nutrients for human nutrition. Here, we envisage to utilize this system to enrich it with mineral nutrients, or biofortify it, required for human growth and development (health) which will be a stepping stone to help tackle the ever-growing malnutrition problem. In the current proposal, the mineral uptake efficiency of polyploid and diploid duckweeds will be evaluated and a suitable clone/ strain of duckweed biofortified with zinc will be developed by selection. The knowledge of polyploid plants being more stress resistant was used as a basis to arrive at the idea to utilize the polyploid duckweed clones for biofortificaion of zinc. It can be expected that these polyploid strains will be able to grow better in the medium containing higher amounts of zinc and at the same time uptake higher amounts of zinc compared to the diploid duckweed clones. The growth conditions of the biofortified clone will be optimized in order to have maximal biomass production. In summary, it is envisaged to develop a nutritional supplement using zinc biofortified clones of duckweeds. The shelf life and the bioavailability of the nutrients from the developed product will be analysed. The success of the present proposal and product development will enable us to efficiently fight the problem of zinc undernourishment in larger scale, which is known to be a serious problem also in India. The effective cost of the product can be reduced drastically because of the employment of a high efficiency biomass production system, like duckweeds. The product thus produced will be completely organic. IP will be generated on the product. This outcome will be pursued in the direction of commercialization. |
Total Budget (INR): | 44,07,832 |
Organizations involved