ASU project in the field of biotechnology received support from the Innovation Promotion Fund

27 January 2022 Editor's office
At the end of 2021, the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere (the Innovation Promotion Fund) approved the results of the competitive selection of projects under the Start-1 program. Among the applications recommended for funding was the project of Altai State University together with a team of scientists from the Siberian Research Institute of Cheesemaking and the National Research Tomsk State University "Development of a technology for the production of milk-clotting proteinases based on the biomass of mycelium and fruiting bodies of higher basidiomycetes for use in the food industry" under the guidance of Associate Professor of the Department of Organic Chemistry, Candidate of Biological Sciences Denis Minakov. This was reported by the website of the Regional Administration for Food, Processing, Pharmaceutical Industry and Biotechnology.

The project aims to develop a technology for the production of milk-clotting enzymes from the biomass of higher basidiomycetes. Due to the deficiency of natural rennet, as well as its high cost, enzymes that are close in their action to rennet are widely practiced. Therefore, studies related to the production of rennet substitutes are an urgent problem in modern biotechnology. Replacing the generally recognized but expensive rennet with fungal proteases of a narrow specific action seems to be an economically profitable and promising task for cheesemaking. The research will use culture fluid, mycelial biomass, and fruiting bodies of higher basidiomycetes.

The Start-1 program aims to create new and supporting existing small innovative enterprises that develop and master the production of new products. The amount of the grant is 3 million rubles. Thanks to grant support, the researchers plan to conduct experimental tests of a milk-clotting enzyme preparation and, in the future, to launch its industrial production.

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