 And I'm talking about micro algae. That's right, almost invisible to the eye. Micro algae are one of the most potent, extraordinary sources of bioactives on the planet. And today we're gonna share with what it can do for you. All right, welcome back. And Vincent, great to be here. Thank you so much for hosting us. This is gonna be an exciting hour. So, let's dive right in. What the heck are algae? So algae and micro algae specifically are a single cell plant that are living in aquatic environments, in different environments. You can find them in the seawater, in freshwater, but also in some specific environment such as tundra, arctic tundra as well, and in the desert as well. So pretty much everywhere. So they are on earth for a billion years. Actually, they are the origin of the oxygen that we breathe in the atmosphere. They are also the origin of the fuel that we put in our cars because as a fossilized biomasses, they have generated oil that we are producing today. Naturally, so that's extremely interesting to think of those benefits for the humankind that the micro algae have delivered. So, that's what our micro algae. So, micro algae, I mean, they're single-celled organisms. A lot of people can think of a bacteria as a single-cell organism, but they're kind of like bacteria, but they can have photosynthesis. They can use sunlight and CO2 to produce oxygen. Exactly, that's the process that we call photosynthesis. And micro algae are plants, so they are plant-based, meaning that they are able to use the light, after the light from the sun, to convert this energy from the light and the CO2 and some minerals into biomass and oxygen. So, in this biomass specifically, there is different bioactives, very amazing diversity of bioactive that those different spaces can deliver. Now, some people think about algae, and they say, oh, seaweed, but seaweed is not algae, I mean, it's a bigger form. Yes, exactly. That's a bigger form of micro algae. Actually, micro algae are the foundation of all plants from Earth. Some become seaweed and sustain the aquatic environment. Some different spaces become the, specifically the green micro algae, become the terrestrial plant that we know and that surrounding us on a daily basis. So, micro algae are the foundation of all plants from Earth. Hence, you can find pretty much everything that is in the plants, in the seaweed, is also in the micro algae at the origin from the, at the starting point, I would say. So, how would micro algae be used in our everyday life? How would I be interacting with it without my knowledge? So, as I say, first, you breathe every day. So, you use the air that, which by almost one third of the earth, of the oxygen which is present in the atmosphere, is produced by the natural micro algae, which are everywhere. So, that's the first benefit, as I said. But on your daily life, micro algae products are increasingly used in food cosmetic products. So, you have some natural colorants that are made from micro algae. You have some antioxidants, natural antioxidants that are used in different food supplements, dietary supplements worldwide. And that's something which is gaining some interest because there are plenty of biological properties that are scientifically demonstrated now. So, can we use these as fuel? Yeah, you could, actually, that's possible because micro algae are extremely rich in oil. So, you could extract oil from those biomasses and turn them into biofuels. Obviously, this is not what we are doing here. What we do is really specific ingredients, speciality ingredients. But by essence, yes, you can really use micro algae to produce oil at the time. And there are some companies that are actually looking into that. Yes, indeed. So, you need really, it requires a lot of space, of volume, and also to be cost effective because obviously the fuel that you put in your tank has to be at a lower price, even though at current time the price is kind of going up, but still producing it by micro algae is still a little bit expensive. So, I think in my opinion, at least, we have 10 to 15 years of research to have some reliable source of biofuels for micro algae. So, a lot of my listeners know about spirulina and florelle. Yes. And people associate spirulina and florelle with health benefits. Is that just scratching the surface of what you're doing? Yes, exactly. I think spirulina and florelle are great products, really great products. They are rich in protein, rich in vitamins and minerals. But that's just two spaces among the 100,000 of spaces that are rich in other compounds, new compounds that are delivering new and innovative benefits for nutrition and cosmetic. So, spirulina and florelle are, yes, the two most known spaces in the micro algae world, an extremely good product, but they are just really the tip of the ice dial, I would say. So, yeah. So, in fact, you and I are sitting in front of one of your bio reactors and people, I hope they're seeing this in the camera, this is not what most of us think of as algae. It's not green. In fact, it's reddish brown, I guess is a nice way of saying it. And you're actually growing algae here that are different colors. And tell me, why would you be interested in a red brown algae instead of a green florelle? Yeah, the color is just a vision that you have and we relate the color to a specific bioactive, of course, because the color of the micro algae are made by the photosynthetic pigment that they are featuring. And those photosynthetic pigments are really unique and are really dependent on the condition where the micro algae is living. So, as you know, obviously the green micro algae are in a specific environment that you can find in the sea, in the pond, in the lakes, et cetera, in the rivers. Whereas you have in the sea, in the oceans, some different layers of water to which the light from the sun can go through to a certain wavelength and that will trigger on the micro algae a specific photosynthetic pigment that will absorb the specific color related to this pigment. So what you see here, the red brown micro algae is the ability of this micro algae to live in a specific environment and to develop specific compounds thanks to this environment. So we are really interested in those micro algae, green, brown, diatoms, any kind of spaces that can deliver those bioactives. And they do that thanks to the ability of producing, adapting themselves to their environments thanks to the metabolic pathway that they will implement. So on a segue to that, a lot of people now know that we can genetically engineer bacteria to produce compounds. Many people know that most insulin is produced by bacteria who've been genetically engineered. There's nothing genetically engineered behind you, right? I mean, you're not telling micro algae by manipulating their genome to make a compound. No, we don't need that. Actually, we learn from them how to extract naturally the bioactives. So we are just at the start of the domestication of the micro algae. That's a new industry which is arriving now. And that's something that we learn from the algae, from the environment in which they live. And what we try to do here, we try to apply the culture conditions that are mimicking the natural condition where they live in order to maximize the biological potential of each micro algae. So we don't need to use any genetic modification. We just have to use and to understand how the micro algae naturally develop their bioactive. So does your company, and I asked this off camera, does your company go out and find an algae that maybe wasn't known about what it did and you grow it here, and then you extract the bioactive compounds and you go, oh my gosh, look, this is an exciting compound. You know about this compound where we have no idea it was in this, is that what you're doing? Yeah, we do that, but we do, actually we do both things. We are able to screen the natural environment, some new environments, we did some screening in Corsica, in French Rihiana, in other places in the world as well. But we do that with the universities. With academic partners that are accessing some new strains, some new environment. And we are more there just to identify the strain, to clean it up from the other single cells that are around it, and to make sure to fully characterize it and to make it grow. So our job is more to really to make sure that from one cell that we have identified, we are able to develop a process that can make a real quantity of biomass to develop those ingredients. So yes, we can work from nature, identify in nature in new environments, some specific strain. But we do also work with some strain collection that are owned by university everywhere in the world. You have a one in Texas University which was a famous one in the States, but you have a different strain collection in Europe, in Japan, from which we source different microalgae, and we will screen 10, 15 different microalgae on a specific project that we have in mind, which is designed by the marketing and the science team at Microfit. So every, obviously every ingredient that we want to launch, we have a specific idea in mind to deliver a specific nutritional benefit or cosmetic benefit. So I think people want to know, aside from eating algae, what sort of micronutrients, bioactive compounds are in microalgae that we should know about and we should be using? So microalgae are extremely diversified. So there are 20,000, probably more bioactive compounds in microalgae, but there are some specific compounds that you can find only in microalgae, such as probably the most known are omega-3 fatty acids. These are essential lipids, as you know. So microalgae are the only living organism able to produce naturally those omega-3 fatty acids that have a lot of benefits on the cardiovascular health, on the general health, mental health, brain health, et cetera. So that's one example of those specific bioactive. And the second example is specific pigment, such as fucoxantin. Fucoxantin is a specific zephyll, it's a type of pigment that the microalgae use to capture the light on a specific wavelength. And this fucoxantin molecule, you can only find it in the marine environment and originally from the microalgae, specifically diatoms and non-microalgae. So this pigment, fucoxantin, is really something of interest for us at MicroFit. We have developed product out of fucoxantin, specifically in brain fit, but it's something which is really unique and on which we have invested a lot of energy to develop a sustainable process to produce it. And you're also using these compounds in cosmetics. Why would I want to smear algae on my face? That's a good question. It's true that as soon as you are using natural ingredients, you will have to manage color, taste, possibly when you taste it, or order that may be different from what you are using on a daily life. And the idea is for us, of course, as our job is to provide ingredients that are easy to use for customers to develop a formulation that are incorporating our ingredients that are totally odorless, that have a nice color, that are stable also over time, in different conditions, making sure that when you apply the ingredient in a formulated product, in a cosmetic cream, that's extremely nice to apply, and you will test that in our lab later. So algae obviously absorbs sunlight and these pigments absorb sunlight. Yes. So wouldn't it be great to have an algae pigment on my skin when I'm out exposed to the sun? Yeah, that's great. Sounds like a good idea. That's an extremely good idea, and it's actually what we do here at Microfit is that we are extracting specific pigments from this microalgae, by the way, which is a red microalgae. So algae are good for the environment, right? They absorb CO2, and they don't use much water. Is that right? They don't drink a lot? No, they don't drink a lot. Actually, they just use water to live and to develop themselves, but they are not consuming water, such as big cereals, for instance, which are having a large water use or cotton that we are using for textile fibers. What we use here, specifically at Microfit, the way we produce is a control environment where the water and the mineral salt are recycled, so we are not using so much water compared to other crops and other plant productions. And yes, you're right, the way we try to produce microalgae at Microfit is really in a sustainable mode, using the natural light, but also artificial light made from renewable energy, and we are producing... So, thanks to this light, the microalgae will convert the CO2 into biomass and oxygen. At a global scale today, all the microalgae that are present in the environment, in the oceans, in the lakes and rivers are consuming one-third of the total CO2 from all the plants, so this is quite significant. And they have the ability to capture a lot of CO2. Now, you just received a large grant from the EU here at Microfit. Tell us, we saw the building going up as we entered. What was this grant for? What are you doing? The grant was a very nice achievement from the team because it was a recognition by the EU that what we are doing is really what they call the flagship technology for the European industry. So, we get this award last year, which is a 15 million grant, which is one of the most selective processes in Europe to get this grant. And we get it last year with the objective to develop the first-of-in-kind plant, what we call the biorefinery, meaning that we are able to produce a large number of microalgae at Microfit. We are producing between 10 and 15 microalgae, different new microalgae, new to the world. From those microalgae, we are able to develop a specific extraction process, sustainable processes that deliver new product, new ingredients. So, the idea and the concept of this scale program, is to really be able to have a platform of production at scale, which is implementing a sustainable process for nutrition, food, cosmetic, but also animal nutrition. So, we have partners around that and we will develop one of the biggest plants of microalgae, which will have unique properties. I think it's a good point. We can grow algae as food, either for us, but particularly for animals. I think most people don't realize that fish are recipients of eating microalgae. And as my viewers know, you are what you eat, but you are what the thing you're eating ate. And feeding either fish or animals, algae may have huge benefits for us, both in it doesn't cost a lot of land mass and a lot of fertilizer to produce biomass with algae. And the benefit then is in all these bioactive compounds. So, is that why the EU is so interested? Because we can't feed ourselves if we keep doing what we're doing. Yes, exactly. The EU was really really interested in this process. Microalgae are the primary producers of essential nutrients. So, we talk about the omega-3 fatty acids, but also some mineral salts, some specific pigments, such as phytoxanthine. And as you said, those are at the basis of the food chain in the natural environment. So, what we are doing here is a kind of shortcut where we are providing directly to the consumers who are partners with food supplements, labs, with cosmetic partners, cosmetic brands. We provide a shortcut through this extraordinary amazing diversity of bioactive that microalgae can deliver. So, yeah, we skip the rest of the food chain, meaning that we save also for the humanity the land which is used, we save a lot of water, a lot of energy, so we try to rationalize everything like that. That's the idea. Now, I know a lot of your products are extracted from the algae. And when people hear extraction in the United States, they worry about harsh chemicals like benzene, like chemicals that are also going to be harmful to us and the environment, but you don't do anything like that here. No, no, no, it's... We made the choice since the inception of microfeed to only use green solvents, meaning water and ethanol, which is a bio-sourced ethanol. And that's those two solvents that we are using. And that's more than enough, actually, because as you have seen in our factory, by playing on the different parameters, the physical properties of the algae, you are able to extract pretty much everything you need without any harsh chemicals, anything that could be harmful to the environment and also to the workers that are there and obviously the consumers. So, no, we are just using green solvents and we are also recycling those solvents right now. So, we are also limiting our environmental impact and the consumption of those products. One of the things we are doing in your lab, your hatchery, your incubator, and one of the interesting things is each algae has its own wants in terms of how much carbon dioxide it likes, how much light it likes. And you actually find out the needs of each algae. So, you're not just pumping red sludge through these tubes. You've found out what this wants to grow. Yes, exactly. It's a little bit more complicated than that. And that's part of our expertise, I would say. That's why, although we are recognized by you and by also some other partners to have this expertise on understanding how the microalgae grows in the best environment possible, making sure that we are extracting out of those biomasses ingredients that are safe, that are effective and that are sustainably produced. So, this is the objective of the microalgae. But you're right, for each of those spaces we need to develop specific processes. And this is an expertise to understand how to grow the algae by combining the mineral salt, the light, the level of CO2 that we will increase. We will add in the hair that the microalgae will use. So, everything, all those parameters are monitored and we develop the processes for each of those microalgae. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. Folks, this is not pond scum that they're pumping around here. This is actually really deep science. And the beauty of what you're doing is you're selecting a species of algae, or multiple algae, for a compound that has either known human benefit or a compound that you suspect is going to have a great human benefit because of what you observe in nature. And now you can grow this at scale rather than just, you know, test it. Exactly. That's always part of the strategy of microfeed to be able to, from what we do at the lab to be able to make it at the industrial scale because ultimately we want to deliver ingredients that are at sufficient volume to be used by our customer, by the food supplement lab, by the cosmetic brands. So that's always part of our R&D development to think in terms of industrialization and scale up of the processes. That's really part of our DMA. But that's the production part, which is really at the center of strategy but also this is not enough. What we do as well is to make sure that what we develop as an ingredient are obviously safe, are regulatory approved but also are effective for our customers and ultimately to the consumer. So we develop also the studies, the science around the ingredients in order to make sure that what we can use is really useful and helpful to the benefit of the consumer. Well, so let's talk about one of your new novel compounds for human nutrition that is called brain fit. Tell me about the key molecules that make up brain fit. So it's a combination of at least three key molecules. The first one, and I already mentioned about it, is fricoxantin, which is a specific bioactive, a specific pigment from the diethyl, a microalgae called phyodactylam, phyodactylam tricornitone. And this microalgae is naturally producing this fricoxantin. So fricoxantin is extremely powerful in terms of its natural antioxidant properties. Another one is an omega-3 fatty acid called PPA which also has some specific biological properties. And a third family of compounds is called phycoprostane. Phycoprostane are really specific molecules that you can only find in brain fit. That's a derivative from the omega-3 fatty acids that are also delivering specific benefits. So the combination of those three molecules in brain fit deliver the scientific results that we have demonstrated on brain health. I think these are very important points for my viewers that plants, particularly algae, as strange as this may seem, have to have sunlight. But sunlight, the photons in sunlight, are damaging to the cellular process of algae, to their mitochondria, which are called chloroplasts. So they produce these compounds to stop that damage from sunlight. And to me, the exciting thing is that when we eat those compounds or you produce these compounds in a supplement that we know from my last book Unlocking the Keto Code that those phenols, those polyphenols that the plants have produced to protect their mitochondria, we then get the benefit by protecting our mitochondria when we eat these plants. It all comes around in a full circle, you're right. As much as we don't realize, we're dependent on these processes. So good for you. The other thing I want to talk about, we were talking off camera, we're beginning to realize how little we know about the nutritional aspects of algae. And then I brought up an experiment in dolphins in the United States. The United States has dolphin colonies for the U.S. Navy, and I won't go into why. But there's a part of dolphins in the Atlantic Ocean and a part of dolphins in the Pacific Ocean. And they're the same species, but the Pacific dolphins age quite rapidly and the Pacific dolphins get all the diseases of the West, they get diabetes, they get old age, they don't think very clearly. But the Atlantic dolphins don't, they don't acquire these. And yet they're the same breed, they live essentially the same saltwater. And these researchers realize that the dolphins on the Atlantic were eating totally different fish than the dolphins in the West Coast in the Pacific. And when they broke down the compounds in these fish, they actually found some odd-chain fatty acids that were very prevalent in the diet of the Atlantic dolphins, but not in the Pacific dolphins. And it's like, oh my gosh, you're on the right track. We need to identify those compounds. Speaking of which, we know the Japanese who eat a lot of seaweed and a lot of seafood have much higher levels of hukuzantin in them than we do. And they're very smart, so I need hukuzantin, right? We all need it. We all need it. And it's just this compound in algae. That's really an interesting situation there. This is true that you can really, from the diet that you have, really understand also the environment in which you live. So that's important to be connected to this environment, of course, and to understand what you can get from the food that you have. So part of the strategy, of course, from the dietary supplement industry is also to bring some additional bioactive to the food to help people to kind of get what they have to do from what they have to get from the food in case it's not available in the natural food that they are using every day. Yeah, I mean, we all cannot move to Japan or to the south of France and eat the fish that you eat. I'd love to, and I do. But yeah, for me, as a supplement company, we all can't do that. And so if we can deliver the active ingredients that we now know are why the health benefit of a Mediterranean diet, for instance, or an Okinawan diet in Japan in something that people can take as a supplement, then we all benefit. And obviously, that's what you want to do. Exactly. So what else... So all right, you're going to feed the world, you're going to take care of us and our brains. What other exciting product are you doing here? We have plenty of new products in the pipeline. At the moment, we are working on 35 different new ingredients, both for nutrition and cosmetics. So we have plenty of things that could be launched over the next few years. And the next one in nutrition will target... We'll have an holistic approach on the sport nutrition because we are understanding that sport nutrition is just not sport. It's also the way that we feel, we react, we interact with other people. So we have a product which is called FICO-Active that will be launched next year, I hope, that will, under development at the moment, at microfeeds, that will target this category of holistic sport nutrition. That's a new product after brain feed. But we have also a range of skin care ingredients that are in development. And we launched last month a Luteana, which is an ingredient targeting the sensitive skin, which is obviously a huge issue in the world. So that's an ingredient that we see also from a world, from a cosmetic industry. And it's really, really promising. And the first ingredient that we add in cosmetic is called a renouvelance. And renouvelance is targeting what we call the urban stress protection. So that's one of those examples of ingredients that protect the skin from the effect of UVs and pollution together. So that's the new ingredient that we have launched just this year. Can you get too much of a good thing? Can I eat too much microalgae? Do you go home for dinner and have a big plate of microalgae, I guess I'm asking? I would not recommend so. But I think the idea for, of course, what we do at microfeeds is we develop ingredients that have to be used at a specific dose. And the efficacy of those ingredients are developed on a specific dose age, which is scientifically established. So you have to follow the instruction of use that the food supplement company are providing on the labels. So that's something which is quite straightforward. And it's really recommended to use that at the level of which we benefit from obviously a full safety, but also the efficacy of the ingredients. All right, so we're about out of time, but we have an audience question on every one of our podcasts. And this one I want you to answer as well, and I'll give my opinion. So the audience question comes from Jeanette Janky on YouTube. Dr. Joe TV, there is such a thing, says, Spirulina contains Pseudo vitamin B12, which is bad. It competes with real vitamin B12 and blocks it to enter the cell. Let's say you. All right, Vincent, what do you think? I would agree. I know that from my knowledge at least, I know that the vitamin B12 in Spirulina is this Pseudo vitamin B12. So I think it's probably not really useful to consume Spirulina in case you would like to get some vitamin B12. But Micrology, you may find some B12, a natural source of B12 that are not Pseudo B12 that we need to, we can use, yes. Great answer. Yeah, it was actually thought by vegans for many years, up until about the year 2000, that the B12 in Spirulina was available and was B12 and it's not. The good news is about half of us, or bad news is about half of us, have a genetic mutation that prevents us from taking vitamin B12 and converting it into methyl B12, which is an active form. So all of my patients, I have them take a methyl B12, a sublingually put it under their tongue. But no, you can have the Spirulina, but please supplement with methyl B12. And we can measure this in everybody's blood and it's amazing how many people are deficient in methyl B12, even among those who are taking B12. So just supplement for the easiest way. Well, this has been great. Where can listeners learn more about you in Microfit? Well, so the idea of course is to get in touch and to check out our website and to subscribe on our LinkedIn page, LinkedIn page, you have also a newsletter so you can get a lot of information on our new product development and new product launches that will come in the next few months and years. And obviously you can meet us in any industry head show, in the US and in Europe. More amazing episodes just like this one. Watch now. So those of you who are using your soda makers at home, please get rid of that. That's not a health benefit.