Project Manager: Amélie Lhuillier-Chaigneau amelie.chaigneau@valinov.fr

Company Relations Manager: Ellen Bouty ellen.bouty@valinov.fr

The Plant Health and Well-being plateform will help you develop your specialist plant production so that you can offer innovative products in a variety of fields such as human and animal nutrition, plant protection, nutraceutical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
The plateform's engineers can intervene at any stage in your projects to advise you, coordinate the work and support you in carrying it out.

Our Services

Evaluate the antioxidant potential of your extracts or compounds using a variety of recognised methods: DPPH, ORAC, photochemoluminescence and lipid peroxidation tests.

Work out the chemical composition of your plant products:

• Extract, purify and identify secondary metabolites of potential interest;
• Make you aware of market constraints (regulatory aspects, etc.).

Carrying out bibliographical summaries

Designing new assay methods to:

• Characterize and measure your active ingredients;
• Optimise your processes: extraction and purification method, methodological development of new detection techniques;
• Transfer these new methodologies to your company by training your employees.

Meeting the requirements of current and future regulations concerning your products:

• Guarantee the active principle content worked out using standardised methods;
• Confirm the absence of toxic products.

Our Expertise and Resources

Phytochemistry and analytical chemistry

• Extraction, separation and purification of plant extract compounds using extraction systems (traditional, under pressure, etc.), and chromatography (TLC, Column Chromatography, Centrifugal Partition Chromatography, etc.)
• Structural characterization of pure compounds using high performance analytical methods such as Mass Spectrometry and NMR
• Chemical screening and quantitative analyses using automated Thin Layer Chromatography combined with Densitometry, High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Gas Chromatography, etc.

Biochemistry, for evaluating the biological potential of extracts or compounds

• Using biochemical and biological tests to assess antioxidant potential (DPPH, ORAC, photochemoluminescence, etc.);
• Screening of other potential activities according to your needs.

Botany

• Identification of plant material;
• Taxonomy and identification of species according to similarities in chemical composition.

Our Facilities

Valinov Equipment:

• High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) system with Diode Array Detector (DAD) and light scattering detector (DDL)
• Accelerated Solvent Extraction System (Dionex® ASE 200)
• Pipetting robot (Tecan Freedom EVO® robotic liquid handling platform to automate methods)
• Multimode microplate reader (Tecan Infinite® 200)
• Photochemiluminescence reader (Photochem ®)
• Automatic TLC applicator (Camag ATS4)
• Centrifuge, freeze dryer, ...

Equipment available in our Research partner laboratories:

• For chromatography analyses: gas chromatography, countercurrent chromatography (FCPC), medium pressure liquid chromatography (MPLC) and Flash chromatography.
• For structural analyses: Infra-Red, Ultra-Violet, Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS, LC-MSn), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR 1D and 2D), Crystallographic Analysis via X-Ray Diffraction.

Our scientific partners:

SONAS Laboratory (Substances of Natural Origin and Structural Analogues, University of Angers)

• Identification of new compounds by resolution of complex chromatographic mixes and structural analysis

ITEIPMAI Laboratory (Interprofessional technical Institute for medicinal and aromatic plants)

• Preparation of standardised plant extracts
• Dosage of active compounds using global or specific methods

PFT Biotechnologies Angers (University of Angers Biotechnology Platform)

• Dedicated genome and proteome facilities

GRAPPE Laboratory (Food Industry Products and Processes Research Group, Angers Agricultural College)

• Physical-chemical, sensory and nutritional characterisation of food products

LBNVI INSERM 771, CNRS 6188 (University of Angers Integrated Neuro-vascular Biology Laboratory)

• Effects of substances on vascular reactivity

RCIM Neurophysiology Laboratory (University of Angers Receptors and Ion Membrane Channels Laboratory)

• Antioxidant or pro-oxidant activities (insecticides) on insect neurophysiology

LABERCA (Nantes Veterinary School Laboratory for the Study of Residues and Contaminants in Foods)

• Measurement and identification of residues or contaminants