The employees of the Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wrocław

prof. dr hab. Antoni Polanowski i prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Wilusz

elaborated an industrial method for obtaining colostrinin from ovine and bovine colostrum.

Colostrinin is a proline–rich polypeptide complex of proteins derived from in colostrum – milky  fluid secreted by mammals, which significantly slows down the process of brain cells destruction that occurs as a result of Alzheimer’s disease. Industrial production of colostrinin includes two stages. The first stage involves the precipitation of unwanted proteins from colostrum, especially casein and immunoglobulins, using alcohols. They allow to eliminate unnecessary, so-called ballast, proteins with concurrent dissociation, i.e. isolation of active peptides from immunoglobulins which are present in the complex. In a second stage, at a given pH, the active proteins are precipitated from the resulting liquid by salting-out. The precipitate after salt elimination is a pure colostrinin.

The preparation containing colostrinin has been already tested in Poland on over 150 patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The results were very promising. Among other, slowed down effects of the disease and improved overall behavioral functions, with clear improvement of memory capacities, were observed in the patients. Preparation effect on memory functions improvement was also confirmed in animal studies demonstrating that administration of the preparation to elderly rats improves the process of remembering, spatial and incidental memory.

British biotechnological company ReGen Therapeutics Plc has undertaken the implementation and commercialization of the method elaborated by Wrocław scientists, and it obtained an international patent in 2005. Diet supplement containing colostrinin (CogniSure™) as well as other nutraceuticals based on active components of colostrum (Colostrum, Colostrum Immune, Colostrum Alpha) are already present on the Polish market.