Our R&D activities in 2018 will focus on four projects:
NANOFACTURING is a European collaboration between four companies and four academic groups. The main aim is to design and build large-scale manufacturing lines for the production of nanopharmaceuticals. The project will focus on scaling up glycan-coated gold nanoparticles, the latest generation of nanomedicines. GalChimia is in charge of synthesizing new types of linkers used to bind together the nanoparticles and the active molecules. The project is reaching its conclusion, with the most promising linkers already transferred to Prochimia and then Applus for scaling up and pilot plant production.
BIOGREEN is promoted by the Spanish Government through the CDTI agency. The project is intended to develop a concept for a green biorefinery using biomass as raw material – specifically high-yield crops not intended as food sources – to obtain high-added-value products like bioplastics, cellulose acetate films and fertilizers. The project will help to drive the bioeconomy concept and to integrate traditionally agricultural sectors into the circular economy model, improving their competitiveness. Our work package deals with the synthesis of cellulose acetate films and we are reaching the established objectives, using both chemical and bioenzymatic reactions to improve results.
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NEOGALFARM began in Galicia, funded by the regional government and involving several partners, including the University of Santiago de Compostela, Nanogap, Oncostellae, AMSLAB and GalChimia. The project is a follow-up to Oncogalfarma, which was begun in 2014 by the same participants, with the aim of finding new cancer treatments. At the same time, we will be establishing a complete platform for the development of new medicines based on the industrial and clinical capabilities of the Galician region. The results obtained in the first phase encouraged us to continue the project. We are working on four strategies based on different targets that have already been validated for oncology. GalChimia is starting to focus on optimizing chemical entities and developing efficient processes to make larger quantity of product. The initial efficiency data are very promising and the preclinical work will be started along 2018.
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MYTITOX is a collaboration between Galician industrial partners from the seafood industry and a research centre in northern Portugal. Companies working in nanotechnology, chemistry and food processing are working together to create prevention tools that can reduce the loss of seafood due to contamination by toxins produced by dinoflagellates (red tide). The project addresses a recurring problem faced by the food processing industry which has become increasingly important due to climate change. GalChimia is synthesizing new materials of the Covalent Organic Framework (COF) type designed to capture these toxins as a way to analyse and predict red tide episodes.
