AINIA

AINIA offers services for companies in the areas of innovation, technology and consulting, in different sectors such as agricultural, food&feed, cosmetic, chemistry, environmental and pharmaceutical.

In the field of biotechnology, AINIA is focused in the processes based on microorganisms and enzymes:

• Agricultural sector: active principles based in microorganisms to improve plant productivity and health (biostimulants, biopesticides, etc.)
• Food&Feed sector: starters for fermentative processes and process optimization, enzymes and enzymatic processes (biocatalysis), antimicrobials based on phages or bacteriocins, functional ingredients from microbial or biocatalytic origin, single cell proteins, biosensors and rapid techniques for pathogen detection.
• Cosmetic sector: active ingredients from microbial origin or from cell cultures, antimicrobials based on phages or bacteriocins.
• Chemistry and materials sector: molecules of industrial interest obtained from modified microorganisms (e.g. biosurfactants etc.), biopolymers, enzymes, etc.
• Pharmaceutical sector: active principles obtained from microorganisms, bioprocess optimization, upscaling, downscaling, processes of chromatographic purification FPLC.
• Environmental sector: anaerobic digestion of organic waste for bioenergy production (biogas, biomethane, biohydrogen) and other products (fertilizers from digestate, molecules of interest from biogas, etc.) in biorefinery models and circular economy.

In addition to that, AINIA commands other technologies that complete the biotechnology offer:

• Micro- and nanoencapsulation: to achieve controlled release over time or under certain conditions (pH, temperature, friction…), or to protect the ingredient from the matrix components, to mask undesired smells, etc.
• In vitro evaluation of bioaccessibility and bioavailability: AINIA has an own-designed in vitro dynamic digester able to simulate in a dynamic way the digestion process, including stomach, small intestine and colonic fermentation. Some types of studies that can be carried out are the gastrointestinal resistance, digestibility, glycemic index, solubilization rate, intestinal absorption, secondary metabolites formation, modulation of intestinal microbiota, etc.
• In vitro evaluation of biological functionality with cell lines: we select the relevant cell line depending on the functionality to be tested, as well as the relevant biomarkers, with tailored experimental designs.
• Laboratory of analysis with different techniques of analytical chemistry, chromatography, traditional microbiology, PCR, rt-PCR, WGS, 16S or 26S metagenomics.