Canomiks builds a better platform for benchmarking botanicals

Leena Pradhan-Nabzdyk, Ph.D., cofounder and chief scientific officer of Canomiks, knows that as principals of a biotech firm that brings pharma-level testing to functional food and beverage development, she and her fellow Canomiks cofounder and chief scientific advisor Manoj Bhasin, Ph.D., wear many hats. And she has no qualms about some of those hats being nerdy.

As Pradhan-Nabzdyk confessed, “We’re both academic geeks.”

So when the two noticed a consistent inability among clinical trials to demonstrate botanical-ingredient efficacy, they approached the conundrum with a suitably academic curiosity and rigor.

“We were constantly looking at academic articles and asking, ‘Why do a lot of these clinical trials fail?’” Pradhan-Nabzdyk recalled. “Why do we see the data in cell culture, but in the clinical trial it’s so different?”

Having asked that question, Pradhan-Nabzdyk and Bhasin then posed another: What if Canomiks could design a test that benchmarks botanicals so that researchers could feel confident knowing that, no matter their trials’ results, at least they were testing consistent materials from the start?

And what if that test could also gauge a botanical’s effect on genes important to health — suggesting further hypotheses worth investigating?

Such a test could transform not only how researchers determine botanicals’ benefits; it could transform how the industry creates functional foods and beverages.

Out of control

“The problem,” as Pradhan-Nabzdyk said, “is well-known in this industry.”

Namely, botanical ingredients are complicated. While ibuprofen is ibuprofen — a relatively small molecule synthesized in a lab under standardized conditions — nature doesn’t practice the same quality control when creating plants.

“They’re different from source to source, from farm to farm and even within the same farm, where there may be different crop strains,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk explained.                                                                                           

Add to that the effects of climate change, fluctuations in soil microbiome, the potential for chemical runoff and more, and it’s easy to see why the extracts, powders and other materials we get from plants can vary so dramatically.

Such variability isn’t entirely bad, Pradhan-Nabzdyk emphasized; nature’s capacity to adapt its output to conditions is part of its genius. “We want natural materials,” she noted. “That’s why consumers use them.” But the tradeoff for that genius is an inconsistency and unpredictability in standardizing plant materials for commercial use.

Presence isn’t everything

Of course, chemical analyses exist that detect variables like botanical presence, identity and purity — but these only take us so far.

“The problem,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk argued, “is that just because a botanical bioactive is present, that doesn’t mean it’s going to have an effect.”

Again, blame nature’s genius: “With botanical ingredients, smaller molecules that accompany the bioactive can have an impact,” she explained. “Complicated aspects of the material’s entire structure mean that if the composition changes, not only do we not always know if we’re getting the same material from batch to batch; we don’t know if it’s going to have the same biological effect.”

Clinical domains

This is where Canomiks’ academic nerdery comes into play.

As Pradhan-Nabzdyk pointed out, her doctorate is in pharmacology, and Bhasin’s is in genomics and bioinformatics. Both also maintain faculty positions at medical schools. “So our domains are in health and clinical science,” she said.

They’re now drawing on those domains to construct this test, deploying genomics, bioinformatics and AI not only to benchmark botanical ingredients against a standard but also to measure botanicals’ biological effect at the genetic level, too.

Toggling on and off

As Pradhan-Nabzdyk put it, “Everything we do at Canomiks tries to understand which of your genes get turned on or off when you take a certain botanical formulation. So we look at gene expression. That’s the genomics part of the test.”

That involves treating commercially available human cells with a pure, analytical-grade botanical ingredient, measuring subsequent activity in 20,000-plus genes and then crafting an algorithm that specifies which of those genes this standard botanical consistently affects.

Biological math

If the results show that, say, 15 genes get turned on to varying extents, Pradhan-Nabzdyk explained, the platform then analyzes what she called “the interplay between those genes and the whole body. And that’s what bioinformatics tries to figure out.”

“Informatics” is the operative term here, as the testing platform generates so much data about the botanical and its “interplay” that running all the permutations and combinations therein exceeds the scope of any human brain to calculate.

“So you need the informatics and the computer’s help to make sense of those relationships to do the biological math,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk said.

Pattern recognition

As for AI’s role in the platform, “It provides retrospective data that give you prospective analytics,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk stated.

It’s classic machine learning: The AI takes in every bit the test generates — from a botanical’s chemical fingerprint to the genes it affects to the results of all those bioinformatics calculations — and by repeatedly searching for and identifying patterns, it builds a model of what those patterns say about the botanical ingredient and its actions in the body.

Passing the test

So what does this mean for food and beverage development?

“If you have a source of turmeric, say, or elderberry, or cranberry,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk explained, “you send that physical sample to us. We test it in the lab, we compare it to the benchmark, we do the genomics and bioinformatics work behind it — and at the end, you get from us a score that says your material matches 90% of the benchmark, for example, or 50% of the benchmark.”

A score below 75% is effectively a “fail,” she said — meaning that we can’t expect the ingredient to deliver the desired effect — but higher scores earn the botanical the “CanTRUST by Canomiks” seal of approval.

“In addition,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk continued, “we also give you information about the human genes affected by your particular sample and some of the roles those genes play in health and wellness — an added piece of info.”

Effect isn’t efficacy

But this raises a question of its own: Does a genetic effect always translate into biological efficacy?

“I absolutely love that question,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk said, “because we interchangeably use ‘efficacy’ and ‘effect,’ but we cannot directly jump from something having an effect to being efficacious.”

To make that leap, you need to run a clinical trial.

“Here we just compare your sample to the benchmark in how it affects, say, the 50 genes that we’ve identified it should,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk explained. “But if we find something consistently good or different, we can do a more in-depth study using our product-validation service, and that’s where we can start looking into claims or even designing a clinical trial based on that data.”

Better science

And this brings us back to what captured Pradhan-Nabzdyk and Bhasin’s curiosity in the first place: clinical trials’ frequent failure to confirm botanicals’ health effects.

Pradhan-Nabzdyk suggested that if the botanical samples these trials use are as variable as plant materials can be, then it should come as no surprise that the resulting data bear artifacts of that variability.

“Researchers may be working at three or four different clinical sites,” she added. “One site gets a batch from one harvest; another gets one from somewhere else. And clinical trials take a long time — maybe more than a year — so you now have inconsistent materials and inconsistent data.”

By standardizing those samples against a benchmark — as Canomiks’ platform permits — “At least you’ll know from the get-go that your product is consistent. If the clinical trial fails, it’s not because of a bad product.”

NSF recognition

That makes for better data, better data make for better conclusions, and better conclusions make for stronger science.

Perhaps that’s why the National Science Foundation (NSF), awarded Canomiks almost $1 million in grant funding this June to fuel the platform’s phase-two development — phase one of which began with a $256,000 NSF grant several years back.

“The reason NSF liked this idea is we’re thinking out of the box and doing something different from what’s being done,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk explained. Rather than iterating upon current practices, their platform represents a genuine step change in how we standardize botanicals and measure their biological efficacy.

And while phase one used turmeric as its model for optimizing the prototype’s methodology, technology and lab-based protocols, the team is now expanding the platform’s application to cranberry and elderberry.

And natural products are only the start. With plans to launch the platform in Q1 2025, Canomiks will offer it to companies producing dietary supplements, skincare products and, of course, functional foods and beverages.

Scientific bandwagon

“I know science is not cheap,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk admitted. “But if we want to survive as an industry and make a difference, everyone has to get on the scientific bandwagon.”

And if we can give consumers more effective and efficacious prevention tools, she added, “That’ll be another way of making a positive impact on health.”

That is Canomiks’ whole mission. “We’re scientists,” Pradhan-Nabzdyk said. “We’re geeks who were successful in our academic lives and we’re doing this now because we really want to make a difference.”