Recently retired NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson established the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund (CIF) in 2010. It awards support to short-term, commercially focused research projects. Each year, a select few promising proposals are chosen based on their likelihood of market success, as well as their potential societal benefits.

To date, CIF programs have granted nearly $6 million to 87 projects, which have attracted over $166.6 million in follow-on funding. These projects have led to 39 startup companies, 68 commercialization agreements and $6.7 million in licensing revenue. 

Profs. Kirill Efimenko & Jan Genzer

When farmers put fertilizer down, most of it never gets to their crops. Much of it ends up in runoff water, and most of what’s absorbed into the ground stays in the soil rather than reaching the roots. Meanwhile, the phosphates that make up one of the main ingredients in all fertilizers are becoming an increasingly finite resource. 

Profs. Efimenko and Genzer think they have found a way to capture – and reuse – wasted phosphates, making fertilizer more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly at the same time. They are developing a polymer gel that can filter phosphates from runoff water. This process yields highly purified phosphates that can be used again in fertilizers several times over. The CIF support will be used to test the process commercially with an industry partner.

Prof. Saad Khan

In terms of weight, the world grows more corn than any other crop. Largely due to how fast it grows, corn is a staple food for over a billion people across the planet. However, corn also needs more fertilizer per acre than any other major crop.

Prof. Khan is working with Prof. Christine Hawkes (Dept. of Plant and Microbial Biology) to fertilize crops with fungi. They believe that endophytic fungi that live inside roots could help farmers grow more crops – with less fertilizer. The idea is to leverage naturally occurring nitrogen, a key ingredient in commercial fertilizers. Fungi can access nitrogen directly from organic matter like compost and manure, whereas plants cannot.

So far, Khan and Hawkes have tested their approach on switchgrass. They are hopeful that the results will translate to food crops. The CIF funding will be used to optimize the endophytic fungi delivery method for corn and explore the potential of forming a startup company to further commercialize the technology.

Congratulations to Profs. Efimenko, Genzer, and Khan on receiving funding for your innovative research projects!

This article is a modified version of Matt Simpson’s article for NC State Office of Research and Innovation.