Called Tesseract Medical Research, the company is the brainchild of co-founder Al Czap, who founded another practitioner channel specialist, Thorne Research, back in 1984 and headed it until its sale in 2010.
The company’s first products are now available for sale to practitioners as well as direct to consumer.
Czap’s new company is based on an advancement in nano-nutrient delivery science that he says is a major leap forward in ensuring that nutrients reach their intended target, where they can have maximum efficacy in improving health outcomes.
Two-step encapsulation technique
Tesseract’s innovation amounts to a two-step approach: Each molecule of the active ingredient is caged in its own carrier to safely reach the intestinal tract for maximum absorption via the patent-pending CyLoc system, which is a cyclodextrin-based molecular trap. The cage matrix is then broken at the desired release point by what the company is calling the DexKey process, and delivered throughout the intestinal tract.
Czap said the name of the company comes from the process he invented.
“When I looked at the structure of the molecular traps they reminded me of a tesseract,” he said. A tesseract is a 3-D representation of a fourth-dimension hypercube. Essentially it is eight cubes compressed into one.
“I’m the inventor of the technology and my name is on the patent. Cyclodextrin was discovered long ago but our technology goes beyond that. We are targeting very specifically difficult molecules and attaching fiber traps to the ends of those molecules,” Czap said.
The technology at the start is being used to encapsulate difficult to absorb molecules such as curcumin and quercitin but can be applied to a wide array of compounds.
Cutting to the chase in gut health
But the real star of the show is a product that cuts to the chase in gut health.
Most probiotic supplements are in the end trying to foster the growth of microbes that will produce more butyric acid in the gut. This short-chain fatty acid is critical to endothelial health as it is used as the preferred metabolic substrate of the cells lining the intestines and colon and has other beneficial health effects as well.
But it’s a nasty, almost impossible substance to deal with in its own right. The molecule is responsible for the bad smells of feces and vomit.
Czap said in its straight, undiluted state it is so smelly that the release of even small quantities is tantamount to a hazardous waste spill.
Czap said using his encapsulation technique he is able to safely sequester individual molecules of butyric acid to make a shelf stable supplement. Czap claims this method delivers much greater efficacy than the other way to deliver this molecule by synthesizing it as a salt.
Future product development
Czap said his history as a practitioner channel specialist CEO, as well as a publisher (he is the founder and publisher of Foundational Medicine Review, formerly the Alternative Medicine Review) gives him access to an extensive brain trust. That will help inform product development going forward, he said.
“We have had inquiries from major universities who want to do studies on a number of conditions using our products. We are not a traditional health food store-type of company. I have access to 20,000 doctors who have used Thorne products for years or who have read my medical journal,” Czap said.
“Those doctors have great faith in what we are doing and want to be involved. We want to introduce new products every six weeks to two months. We are not coming up with some new miracle cure from the Amazon. We are taking things that have absolutely solid science behind them and just making them so much better,” he said.