

USDA Agency Gives
Awards for Moving Research to MarketBy Ben Hardin December 5, 1996WASHINGTON, Dec. 5--Simply
inventing something new wasn't enough for a Maryland-based scientist who
developed an alternative to drug treatment for a costly poultry disease, and
two scientists at Peoria, Ill., who combined starch, oil and water to make a
gel with versatile food and industrial potential. These researchers went
"the extra mile" to attract industry interest in their inventions,
helping move their discoveries from the drawing board to the marketplace. The scientists will be rewarded Dec. 11 with technology transfer awards
from their employer, the Agricultural
Research Service, chief research agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. An awards
ceremony is scheduled at the agency's Beltsville, Md., research center. The Agricultural Research Service's annual technology transfer awards
"are a venue to reward research that begins in the laboratory and ends
with farmers, industry and consumers," said Edward B. Knipling, acting ARS
administrator. Knipling will present the awards. A gold plaque will go to microbiologist Harry D. Danforth, who is working
with industry to develop a gel vaccine to control the poultry disease
coccidiosis, estimated to cost U.S. poultry growers $600 million annually in
medication costs and lost production. Danforth works at the ARS
Parasite Biology and
Epidemiology Laboratory at Beltsville. Procedures for dispensing the vaccine are now being field tested. Danforth
is cooperating with commercial companies through ten Cooperative Research and
Development Agreements (CRADA's), Trust Agreements or Memorandums of
Understanding. Chemists Kenneth Eskins and George F. Fanta also will receive gold plaques
for transferring to industry the process for making Fantesk, a stable blend of
starch, water and vegetable oils or other fat-like materials. The scientists
have working arrangements with at least eight companies exploring potential
applications of Fantesk including its use in low-fat foods, cosmetics,
adhesives, seed coatings and pharmaceuticals. Fanta and Eskins work at the
research agency's National Center for
Agricultural Utilization Research at Peoria, Ill. One individual and five groups of researchers will receive silver plaques
at the Dec. 11 awards ceremony for their achievements in transferring
technology from the lab to industry. They are:
- Donna M. Gibson, a plant physiologist with the ARS
Plant Protection Research unit in
Ithaca, N.Y. , and Raymond E.B. Ketchum, formerly with ARS and now a visiting
scientist at Cornell University. Gibson and Ketchum are being honored for
transferring to industry the technology for a plant cell culture-based system
to produce taxol, a promising chemotherapeutic drug.
- Plant pathologists Charles Wilson and Wojciech Janisiewicz and plant
physiologist Michael E. Wisniewski of the ARS
Appalachian Fruit Research
Station at Kearneysville, W. Va. They are being recognized for their
research and cooperation with industry leading to developing, commercializing
and registering the first biologically-based alternatives to synthetic
fungicides for controlling postharvest diseases of fruits.
- Microbiologist David J. Nisbet, veterinary medical officer Donald E.
Corrier and chemist John R. DeLoach, for developing and transferring to
industry the technology behind a mixture of natural bacteria that can be
sprayed onto newly hatched broiler chicks to protect them against invasion by
Salmonella bacteria. Nisbet and Corrier work at the ARS
Food and Feed Safety Research unit at
College Station, Texas. DeLoach was leader of the research unit, but now works
for a private company, Milk Specialties Co., Inc., of Dundee, Ill.
- LaVerne E. Stetson, an agricultural engineer at the ARS Soil and Water
Conservation Research unit at Lincoln, Neb., for promoting electrical safety
through workshops and seminars on the efficiency of agricultural wiring
applications and stray voltage detection and correction.
- Barbara A. Leonhardt and E. David DeVilbiss, for developing a new dispenser
for an attractant used to lure gypsy moths in detection programs. Leonhardt is
director of the ARS Plant
Sciences Institute at Beltsville, Md., and DeVilbiss is a scientist at the
Beltsville facility.
- Microbiologists Norman J. Stern, J. Stan Bailey, Nelson A. Cox and Leroy C.
Blankenship, for developing and transferring to industry technology that
reduces consumer exposure to highly infectious disease-causing bacteria. The
researchers work in the
Poultry
Microbiological Safety Research unit at the ARS Richard B. Russell
Agricultural Research Center at Athens, Ga.
Contact: Edward B. Knipling, Acting ARS Administrator, Washington,
DC. Telephone: (202) 720-3656.  U.S. Department of Agriculture | |