CMA: Bioactives workshop 2011-12

Summary

The 2011 MLA bioactives workshop was held from 11th to 13th October. Day 1 was held at the CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences, Werribee site, with day 2 and 3 held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Melbourne. The workshop included a site visit to Murray Goulburn co-operative Company, Leongatha and CSL Limited, human plasma processing facility in Broadmeadows, Victoria.

On the first day of the workshop, 3 presentations on the business case for bioactives, potential uses of blood proteins and the technologies used to extract and separate bioactives were made. This was followed by pilot scale demonstrations of extraction and separation technologies used in the food industry. The pilot scale demonstrations included the use of enzyme technology to hydrolyse and extract bioactives from cellular material, e.g. bovine trachea and a demonstration of separating two minor protein components of  milk using continuous separation (CSEP) technology, a form of simulated moving bed chromatography. 

The attendees made site visits to Murray Goulburn Cooperative Co, Ltd where CSEP technology is used at commercial scale to separate minor proteins from milk, and to CSL where human blood plasma is fractionated into different fractions using chromatography and membrane filtration technology.