Cornell-based startup , which applies the emerging field of metabolomics to the soil microbiome to develop new products for agriculture, has won a $750,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II award to field test its unique pathogen-fighting technology.
The team includes , professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频, and Daniel Klessig, adjunct professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Life 麻豆视频, along with Ascribe CEO Jay Farmer.
, Ascribe Bioscience became the first company based on technology developed at the (BTI) to receive a NSF SBIR grant, when it got a $225,000 Phase I award. Schroeder and Klessig are both BTI scientists.
The company鈥檚 product, Phytalix, is a natural compound that soil-dwelling roundworms use to communicate with one another. Plants can sense these communication compounds to a degree, giving them some time to launch an immune response.
鈥淏asically, pathogens use these molecules to communicate and the plants are eavesdropping,鈥 said Murli Manohar, co-founder and CTO of Ascribe Bioscience, and a research associate at the Boyce Thompson Institute.
By treating crop seeds with Phytalix before they grow into plants, the plants鈥 immune systems are preemptively primed against certain pathogens, and better equipped to ward off illness when the time comes 鈥 similar to humans鈥 use of vaccines.
Unlike commercial pesticides, Phytalix doesn鈥檛 kill microbes, thereby avoiding emergence of evolutionary resistance to the chemicals. And unlike live, microbe-based pesticides, Phytalix doesn鈥檛 introduce non-native or genetically engineered microbes to an ecosystem.
Phase II funding will allow Ascribe to test Phytalix鈥檚 efficacy on protecting soybeans and wheat in the field. The team will also test its technology鈥檚 compatibility with commercial pesticides to see if it works more reliably in conjunction with chemicals.
Casey Verderosa is a writer for the Center for Regional Economic Advancement.
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