Abstract: Disclosed are methods of extracting and purifying capsinoids (e.g., capsiate, dihydrocapsiate) from Capsicum species fruit involving drying (e.g., freeze drying) the fruit to produce dried fruit and grinding the dried fruit to produce powdered fruit, extracting the powdered fruit at least once with a non-polar organic solvent (e.g., pentane, hexane, heptane, iso-octane, cyclohexane) to produce an organic solvent extract, subjecting the organic solvent extract at least once to liquid/liquid extraction (partitioning; no drying involved) using a polar solvent (e.g., acetonitrile, methanol) to form a capsinoid enriched polar solvent partition, and optionally purifying the capsinoid enriched polar solvent partition (e.g., via HPLC using acetonitrile as a carrier) to yield capsinoids. The non-polar organic solvent is not miscible with the polar solvent.

Abstract: The semi-rigid culture vessel is structured to transform a flexible culture vessel into a semi-rigid form to facilitate laboratory processes. The semi-rigid culture vessel includes at least two rims connected by at least one rib to form an internal support. The internal support is enclosed within the gas-permeable flexible culture vessel to form the semi-rigid culture vessel.