How to develop health-promoting food supplements by using single-use bioreactors

There is currently considerable interest in alternative and sustainable production methods for healthy foods. The cultivation of plant cell cultures in suitable bioreactors instead of growing whole plants on the field may be a solution. In this way, the cell cultures of interesting plant species can be established independent of the location. Furthermore, secondary metabolism can be specifically controlled during mass propagation of the cells. In other words, the expression of compounds promoting health and wellbeing can be supported, and the formation of substances with adverse health effects can be suppressed. We used this approach to make cacao powder and to produce a ‘cell culture chocolate’ by growing suspension cells from Theobroma cacao in a Flexsafe RM 20L bag with a screw cap from a BIOSTAT RM 20/50. The cell line (dark culture) was established from a well-growing and friable callus clone, and has a doubling time of 4 days. It provided up to 40% higher concentrations of the polyphenols epicatechine, procyanidine B1, B2 and C1, and cinnamtannine A2 than cocoa beans from pods grown in Puerto Rico. The alkaloids caffeine and theobromine were absent in the cell culture grown in MS-medium. On day 16, about 300 g biomass (fresh weight) was harvested from the wave-mixed single-use bioreactor operated in feeding mode. Addition of an antifoam agent and pH-regulator was not required. The biomass was freeze-dried, resulting in in vitro cacao powder that was roasted and milled before adding sugar, lecithin and cocoa butter. 3 blocks of dark chocolate (70%) were produced, which provided the experts on the ZHAW`s sensory panel with a unique taste experience. The flavour was intensive and complex, citric and berry flavours being predominant. The results demonstrate the suitability of wave-mixed bioreactors for the development of plant cell-based health-promoting food and food ingredients. Subsequent studies will focus on the influence of power input and shear stress on polyphenol formation, and the development of a scalable low-cost bioreactor

Plant cell culture technology in the cosmetics and food industries : current state and future trends

The production of drugs, cosmetics, and food which are derived from plant cell and tissue cultures has a long tradition. The emerging trend of manufacturing cosmetics and food products in a natural and sustainable manner has brought a new wave in plant cell culture technology over the past 10 years. More than 50 products based on extracts from plant cell cultures have made their way into the cosmetics industry during this time, whereby the majority is produced with plant cell suspension cultures. In addition, the first plant cell culture-based food supplement ingredients, such as Echigena Plus and Teoside 10, are now produced at production scale. In this mini review, we discuss the reasons for and the characteristics as well as the challenges of plant cell culture-based productions for the cosmetics and food industries. It focuses on the current state of the art in this field. In addition, two examples of the latest developments in plant cell culture-based food production are presented, that is, superfood which boosts health and food that can be produced in the lab or at home

ON FOOD

We live in a world of plenty. Natural riches and cultural artefacts. Human intellect and powerful technologies. We revel in an abundance of energy and information. Everything is available to us. Nevertheless the contemporary paradigm of thinking is dominated by the principles of scarcity. Holistic approaches aim to sustain our habitat by means of an expanded understanding of the Planet Earth. The knowledge gained intents to provide mankind with the necessary toolset to act proportionally and maintain a balance in nature. With this thinking, however, we remain within the confines of a nature which has been considered an inevitable necessity to this day. In this dissertation, we primarily meditate upon the notions of Land- and City- Scapes. We take ourselves into a cataract of indexes and mark two different bodies of thinking which address nature in an orthogonal manner. Land Scapes go in sync with the limits of a Cosmic Mold. A Horizontal Scape frames immediately, a Flat Land which is governed by Inert States. However City Scapes celebrate the plenty derived from a Wandering Earth. A distant Vertical Scape casts symbolic Civic Characters, which are staged in Venturous Plays and thus made to talk. This inversion becomes enabled by the advent of Informational Thinking and Computational Grounds and their underlying principles. The intelligible structure elaborated in the first part of this dissertation requires mediation. We therefore propose a scheme that primarily stages Specific Scapes in order to listen to those who think they know what a certain subject is about. We prepare Generic Grounds which allow us to erect an Intelligible Instrument. This Instrument subsequently becomes played in various Sensible Applications. In order to show the potentials, we embark on Four Ventures in the world of food. Venture 1 casts off naturalized grounds and cultivates novel digestible natures. We confect Chocolate from Cacao Cell Cultures. Venture 2 questions crafts and traditions in the vineyard. We raise a remote Vine Yard. This informational instrument allows for the navigation of a probabilistic cloud suspended high above the actual vineyard. Venture 3 approaches subjects and objects of wine. We enable symbolic terroirs that give the wine itself a voice and thus allow for rich talks. Venture 4 deals with subjects that give values to the object of food. We cast off a Value Cloud from which numerous articulations and values of food can be derived. In this dissertation we present nature as contingent. Thereby Intelligible Instruments bear novel Viands which we can render edible and visible on the sensible stage of Food. The Venturous Plays continue to luxuriate and thereby keep the worth of food as a cultural artefact alive

Luftaufnahmen zur Optimierung logistischer Herausforderungen bei der Traubenernte

Since 2013 the ZHAW Wädenswil cooperates with the Hessisches Staatsweingut Kloster Eberbach sampling two vineyards (7ha) with different trellis systems (guyot and minimal pruning) to evaluate possibilities for picture based quality assessment. Berry samples are analyzed for total solids [°Oe], total acidity [g*L-1] and pH using FTIR technology. To gain detailed information about the ripening process three sampling dates each season are conducted. For each date pictures are taken in four different wavelengths (red, green, red edge, nir) of both vineyards using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) from 60-100 m. The sampled vines are georeferenced and spatial data was interpolated using kriging-method. To extract Inter-annual spatial variation of grape quality, vines were split into clusters of high-performers, average-performers and low-performers and their ripening performance was analyzed within one season. Normalized differenced vegetation index (NDVI) was computed to compare picture based zoning with ground-truthing data. Within a season min/max difference of total acidity was found to diminish while min/max difference in total solids remains stable during ripening season. Inter-annual spatial variation of grape quality was found to be mainly unstable with only small exceptions. Depending on the year, fluctuations between clusters were astonishingly high leading to a false interpretation as absolute values do not represent future performance. For example, in the year 2013 only 58% (2014 43%, 2015 67%) of vines in the cluster of high-performers could hold their status till next sampling date two weeks later. During this time, the average performance [°Oe*day-1] was even lower than compared to the cluster of low-performers (2013 high-performers: 0.38 [°Oe*day-1], low-performers: 0.81[°Oe*day-1])

Time and timing in the acoustic recognition system of crickets

The songs of many insects exhibit precise timing as the result of repetitive and stereotyped subunits on several time scales. As these signals encode the identity of a species, time and timing are important for the recognition system that analyzes these signals. Crickets are a prominent example as their songs are built from sound pulses that are broadcast in a long trill or as a chirped song. This pattern appears to be analyzed on two timescales, short and long.Recent evidence suggests that song recognition in crickets relies on two computations with respect to time; a short Gabor function as part of a linear-nonlinear (LN) model that operates as a filter for pulse rate and a longer integration time window for monitoring song energy over time. Therefore there is a twofold role for timing. A filter for pulse rate shows differentiating properties for which the specific timing of excitation and inhibition is important. For an integrator, however, the duration of the time window is more important than the precise timing of events.Here, we first review evidence for the role of Gabor functions and integration time windows for song recognition in crickets. We then explore the effects of duration, frequency, phase and offset of Gabor functions as these will result in differently timed patterns of excitation and inhibition. These filter properties were compared with known preference functions of crickets and katydids. In a comparative approach, the power for song discrimination by LN-models was tested with the songs of over 100 cricket species. It is demonstrated, how the acoustic signals of crickets occupy a simple 2-dimensional space for song recognition that arises from timing, the Gabor function, and time, the integration window. Finally, we discuss the evolution of recognition systems in insects based on simple sensory computations.<br/