Interview with Inventor
Interview with Prof. Alexey Tyrkov, Dean of the Chemical Department of ASU, Supervisor of the research project “Extraction Technique & Composition of Oil from Pumpkin Seeds”, Director of the Green Chemistry Research & Educational Center.
– Professor, could you tell us about your project?
– Since 2010, the Green Chemistry Research & Educational Center has been operating at the Chemical Department of ASU. We have special equipment to obtain extractive substances, including vegetable oils from various plants, following the principles of Green Chemistry. Our oil from pumpkin seeds, which is known as Tykveol, is applied in a number of fields quite widely – for example, in pharmacy as a component that improves work of the gastrointestinal tract, gastric, hepatic, or pancreatic peristalsis. It’s also applied in the food industry to manufacture bakery and confectionery. That’s why development of modern environmentally-friendly techniques to extract vegetable oils is one of the most important and relevant fields of present-day researches in Green Chemistry.
– Who are authors of this project, besides you?
– Professor Anatoliy Velikorodov, who heads our Chair of Organic, Inorganic, & Pharmaceutical Chemistry; two Associate Professors of the same Chair, who work at our Green Chemistry Center, – Vyacheslav Kovalyov and Svyatoslav Nosachyov; our postgraduate students Mohammed Ahmed Abdelrakhim and Valentina Ionova. 
We also work with other institutions, such as the National Research Institute of Vegetable Farming & Melon Cultivation represented by its Director Mikhail Puchkov.
– What are advantages of your technologies over similar ones?
– Traditionally, oil from pumpkin seeds is extracted by hot pressing, but on the one hand, a high temperature (hot steam) reduces the product yield, and on the other hand, it speeds up the destruction of biologically active substances, which worsens organoleptic and medicinal qualities of oil. The technology we patented implies extraction of oil by applying the method of supercritical extraction with the liquid carbonic gas (at temperature 30º C and pressure 400 to 500 atmospheres); that is, the process takes place under mild conditions. This way of oil 
extraction makes it possible to increase not just the target product yield, but also the range of biologically active components that are extracted in addition. We patented all those know-hows.
– Have you exhibited your pumpkin oil at forums, conferences, or expositions?
– Every year we take part in pharmaceutical exhibitions in Moscow, such as the exhibition “Pharmacy” at the Moscow Expocenter, as well as in the scientific conference “Supercritical Fluid Extractions”; we exchange experience with our colleagues who work in the same field.
– Did you face any difficulties when you patented your intellectual property?
– As a rule, we have no difficulties when we patent something, as staff of our Center gained rich experience in legal registration of intellectual property. Yet, that’s a rather lengthy process: it takes about two years. At first, we undergo a formal expertise (a couple of months); then we face an actual expertise, when sometimes we have to answer experts’ questions, amend the official descriptions of our inventions, and so on.
– What are your plans to commercialize this product?
– Of course, we take actions to market our product range. To do that, we should position it the right way, search for potential investors to back its further mass production. Anyway, we have to determine the right ways to commercialize it.
Interviewed by T.Yu. Gavrilkina (University Web Resources Information Support Laboratory of ASU)
Photos by A.G. Tyrkov
Translated by E.I. Glinchevskiy (Center of Translation Studies & Conference Interpreting “ASTLINK”)
March 10, 2016