Abundant opportunities for development of new actives

Aquatic environments, including oceans, lakes, rivers, hot springs, and lagoons, offer an incredible richness of biodiversity and many opportunities to develop new natural bioactive compounds that respond to the requirements of sustainable cosmetics

In the marine environment, algae are one of the largest groups in terms of diversity, and according to Guiry, they have been estimated to have from 30,000 to more than 1 million species.¹ Classically, the algae also named as ‘seaweeds’, are divided into three major groups (green, brown and red) largely based on the colours of the pigments they synthesise. In fact, an extensive range of pigments including phycobiliproteins is present in algae. They are highly fluorescent proteins classified into two large groups based on their colours, the phycoerythrin (red), and the phycocyanin (blue). Interestingly, algae developed adaptive responses to environmental stress (UV, pH, high temperature, bacteria, pressure, turbulence…) and thus, under optimised conditions; they are able to produce more or fewer pigments or other active molecules. 

Greentech, through its subsidiary Greensea specialised in phycotechnology, take advantage of the adaptive responses in algae for the production of a large and diverse array of biochemical constituents. Thus, we developed several actives from marine origin and with various activities. For example, the first marine active contributes to vascular tonicity enhancement (to correct rosacea). It corresponds to a subtle mix between oligosaccharides and essential oligoelements, obtained by metabolic induction of the microalga Porphyridium cruentum.