Lab Assays Designed for Natural Products
Cell Based Lab Assays
Living cells are excellent experimental models to demonstrate the mechanisms of action of what happens inside the human body. Blood samples offer a readily accessible source of multiple types of cells to study specific mechanisms of action for natural products in our lab assays, involving cell culture, flow cytometry, and Luminex testing of biomarkers.
Pre-Clinical Support
Results from pre-clinical testing serve as a foundation for building a science-based product portfolio and can help plan study designs for clinical trials on novel products, extracts, and blends.
Clinical Support
In clinical trials, bioassays can be used for evaluation of changes to cellular functions associated with consumption of natural products, where fresh blood samples from subjects are studied ex vivo. Read more about our clinical studies here.
Product Development
The selection of ingredients, the verification of novel extracts, and the validation of blends is driven by marketing claims and is ideally guided by a sequence of testing and clinical feasibility studies.
QA/QC Uses of Biological Assays
In situations where a claim is associated with a specific function (such as cellular antioxidant protection), lot-to-lot testing can help the QA process and help assure the key properties continue to meet expected levels.
Foundational Claims Support
Supporting specific marketing claims starts in the laboratory. For many existing ingredients much knowledge has accumulated and is published in the scientific literature, but for novel products, extracts, and blends, a foundation of scientific data is needed. Ideally this begins with exploratory lab testing and clinical pilot work and leads to a final goal of data from clinical trials.
