1.

Univerve’s fatty green fuel

Israel’s Univerve, founded in 2009, is a clean-tech company from Tel Aviv focusing on
breeding algae as a feedstock for biofuel. Looking to create the world’s “fattiest” algae
using special breeding techniques, the company is also creating a unique bioreactor to
squeeze high percentages of biofuel from micro-algae grown in undesirable saline water
under harsh desert conditions.

Univerve’s pilot plant in Rotem Industrial Park maintains a focus on third-generation

biofuels that do not compete with food sources, and the company boasts a winning
team of plant-breeding experts, industrialists and business advisers.

Univerve’s algae for biofuel.

2. Commercial algae farm

Not putting all its algae in one bucket is Israel’s Seambiotic, an established algae farm
and production company that provides algae feedstock to the nutraceuticals industry,
while at the same time pursuing novel ways to grow algae to make it a competitive
biofuel in the long run. The company’s successful pilot plant using the polluting
smokestacks of the power industry works with the Israel Electric Company in Ashkelon,
with promising algae business deals underway in the United States, Italy and in China.
Seambiotic launched its first commercial algae farm this year in China to help the
growing country capture carbon while creating a nutritious byproduct. The company
expects to be a major algae biofuel contender in the future when the market is ready.
Meanwhile it paves the way using algae in carbon-capture projects and in the food
additives business.

Making oil from algae.

3. Nutritional additive

Seambiotic isn’t the only company to see the nutritional value in algae. The
nutraceutical and food additive company Lycored is making Omega 3 health
supplements from algae. As the world catches on to the health benefits of Omega 3,
usually sourced from fish oil, Lycored produces Lyc-O-Mega 10 AL, a vegan and
sustainable product available worldwide, made from simple algae.

The company’s technology relies on a process called micro-encapsulation so that

bakers and confectioners can add in a healthy dose of Omega 3, also known as
docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), to consumer products such as bread, without the need
for dietary supplements and fishy burps that go along with the daily dose.
 Lycored’s algae supplement can be used in bread.

4. Restoring ‘wild’ taste and vitamins to farmed salmon

What makes wild salmon so pink, tasty and healthy? It’s Haematococcus pluvialis, a
type of algae they eat. Farmed fish can be fed what the wild salmon eats naturally, says
a team led by Prof. Sammi Boussiba from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

This team developed a way to cultivate a natural algae feed for farmed salmon to give
the fish a vitamin boost that gets passed on to our plates. The natural variety of colorant
called astaxanthin is still an expensive and niche product, but the researchers and their
advisors expect it will catch on in time, as more consumers choose the natural and
organic catch of the day.
 Prof. Sammi Boussiba, at the algae plant in Kibbutz Ketura.

5. Reducing dangerous algae blooms

Every decade or so, a toxic algae bloom proliferates around Israel’s Sea of Galilee,
threatening the people, wild animals and pets that play and live off the inland lake, and
the many citizens who rely on Israel’s only freshwater lake for drinking water. Hebrew
University researchers suspect the culprit is a sly cyanobacteria that enslaves other
micro-organisms in its nasty mission of creating algae blooms that cut off sunlight and
deplete water from oxygen, thereby starving fish.
 An algae bloom on a pond. Photo by www.shutterstock.com

In 2010, these researchers explained the biological mechanisms behind this dirty trick.
How this information is applied may help scientists better cope with mitigating algae
blooms in the future.

6. Algae to heal hearts

An Israeli biotech company is applying a brown seaweed (marine algae) that produces
an incredible amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid to reduce blood pressure, alleviate
chronic inflammation and reduce blood cholesterol level – all factors that lower the risk
of heart attacks, according to Israel’s BioLineRx.

One novel application is a seaweed-based gel that can be injected into tissue to coat
the heart muscle and help it heal after a heart attack. The gel works its way into the
heart’s ischemic tissue, where it acts to stop the heart from dilating and becoming
further damaged.

7. TransAlgae
Founded in 2008, the Israeli company TransAlgae is working to create genetically
altered varieties of algae to feed farmed fish, and also algae for biofuel. Based on the
research of Prof. Jonathan Gressel at the Weizmann Institute of Science, TransAlgae
has already commercialized an algae-growing system to produce Allboost, a product
that helps fish and crustacean farmers fatten their stock while improving survival rates.

In the pipeline is an algae strain that can help fish fend off viruses. In the future
TransAlgae also intends to develop algae-based products to boost the well-being of
livestock, and eventually human health as well.

Prof. Jonathan Gressel

8. Harvesting algae at sea

Creating algae ponds near power plants, or on tracts of arid desert land, is one way to
make room for this new kind of biofuel feedstock. But a research team at Tel Aviv
University has invented a novel aquaculture system to grow algae out at sea to create a
win-win: making fuel while solving ecological problems on coastal regions caused by
pollution created by fish farming and human waste.

The Combined Aquaculture Multi-Use System feeds off the pollution, creating a
favorable environment in which good biofuel feedstock algae can thrive. The project is
led by Prof. Avigdor Abelson of the department of zoology and the new Renewable
Energy Center, who asserts that marine macroalgae (seaweed) can be grown faster at
sea.

9. Micro-algae to lower cholesterol?

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva have discovered that a mutant
algae strain found in freshwater can produce an important polyunsaturated fatty acid
necessary for human nutrition and brain function. They believe that this novel algae-
based nutrient could reduce blood pressure, chronic inflammation and blood cholesterol
levels. In harmony, all these effects lower heart attack risk. The next step is to test it in
the lab and clinic.