Team:Calgary/Description

Wet Lab

Confronting Green Seed on Three Fronts

Canola oil is one of Canada’s leading exports and supplies 27 billion dollars to the national economy every year. However, the Canadian canola industry currently faces a number of obstacles like unpredictable weather patterns, a lack of standardization when grading yields, and a problematic phenomenon known as “green seed”. Our team seeks to help local farmers creating tools to tackle all three of these issues.

Green Seed

Immature canola seeds contain a high concentration of chlorophyll, which gives them a green hue. As the seeds mature, enzymes act to break down the chlorophyll and the seeds eventually turn brown. However, if the plants are exposed to frost or drought before the maturation process is complete, the chlorophyll degradation pathway suspends itself and the seeds remain green. The oil pressed from green canola seeds contains a high concentration of chlorophyll, which causes the oil to have a foul taste and spoil quickly. The green seed problem causes annual losses of over 150 million dollars. Our team aims to address this issue by using water-soluble chlorophyll-binding proteins and emulsified water droplets to isolate and remove the chlorophyll molecules from the oil. The extracted chlorophyll will be converted to pheophorbide a, a downstream molecule in the chlorophyll degradation pathway.

Seed Grading

After removing chlorophyll from green seed canola oil, our team looked to ways in which we could repurpose chlorophyll to create a valuable commercial product. Our team investigated the enzymatic conversion of chlorophyll into pheophorbide a, and its use as an anti-fungal agent.

Repurposing Chlorophyll

Enzymatic degradation of chlorophyll into pheophorbide a

Anti-Fungal

Pheophorbide a as an anti-fungal agent
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