Big benefits in little packages: life-sciences companies are using the smallest organisms to improve North Carolina's largest industry, agriculture.

• Position: LIFE SCIENCES ROUND TABLE

NORTH CAROLINA'S LIFE-SCIENCES INDUSTRY is taking a close look at the microbiome, where bacteria and other single-celled creatures facilitate vital tasks, such as fighting disease and absorbing water and nutrients, for animals and plants. By harnessing those powers, crops can be cultivated in harsher conditions, making it easier to feed a hungrier world. Business North Carolina and N.C. Biotechnology Center assembled a panel of experts to discuss where this research stands, how it's being implemented and what fruit it will bear.

WHAT VALUE DOES THE MICROBIOME HOLD?

EMANUEL The United Nations estimates the world's population will be 9.7 billion people by 2050. They will require three times the resources that are currently consumed. Growers and related industries are looking at anything that could make agriculture more dependable, sustainable and productive. We believe the microbiome holds enough potential to warrant serious investments in research, acquisitions and product development. They involve chemistry, biologicals, information technology and much more.

BUGG Bayer is a life-sciences company, so it is interested in the microbiome for many reasons, including plant and animal health. I've been involved with the development of biological products--mainly seed treatments--for 12 years. The research group I oversee at RTP does most of its work in a lab and greenhouse. VOTiVO was my first project with Bayer. It uses a bacteria that prevents small worms--nematodes--from damaging the roots of young plants. It's applied directly to the seed. It wasn't the first commercial biological product, but its development and introduction were unique. It opened doors within Bayer and the entire agriculture community. Its mainstream success forced people to look differently at biological products.

BASRA Biologicals, chemistry, natural and synthetics all work together. We focus on chemistry, but we watch the biological field. We're a synthetic chemical company, so we created a plant biostimulant. We have partnered with others, such as Bayer CropScience, to launch biostimulant products because their distribution networks are bigger. We are developing a biostimulant that is compatible with Bayers fungicide, pesticide or biologicals. Our chemicals make that biological product more efficient or consistent. Biologicals or microbiological products cannot replace chemistry. They can reduce its need or work with it.

BLASIAK We see short-term opportunities for our biocontrol products, such as a microbe that helps crops fight disease or produce consistent yields despite challenging environmental conditions. Accomplishing that will require understanding how a single organism can affect an entire community. In the long term, if we can understand the interplay among plants, soil chemistry and the microbiome, then we'll be able to precisely tailor agriculture to each grower's need. That's where we're headed.

SMITH Biologicals give you the opportunity to utilize modes of action that are in nature. The industry hasn't emphasized that yet. The chemistry around formulating a chemical ingredient is well understood, and much of that knowledge is maintained as trade secrets. There is a real opportunity to develop technology around formulations that create stable biological products. That would enable their use where infrastructure, such as refrigeration, is lacking. That can be commercialized. It's hard to do that with only chemistry. Most successful chemistry has a biological model or biomolecule that was discovered and then modified to allow commercial use.

SHAFER The [Soil Health] Institute's mission is to sustain and...