Category Archives: Food Systems

Shaping the Future of Farming

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Thirty-five years ago, when CALS bacteriologist Winston Brill and his colleagues set out to exploit science’s newfound ability to manipulate genes to confer new traits on crop plants, the technology was, literally, a shot in the dark.

Working in a facility in Middleton, just west of Madison, Brill and his team blasted plant cells using a gene gun—a device that fired microscopic gold beads laden with DNA.

The idea was to introduce foreign genes that could confer new abilities on the plants that would ultimately be grown from the altered cells. First as Cetus of Madison, Inc., later as Agracetus and still later as a research and development outpost of Monsanto Company, the Middleton lab was, by all accounts, a hub of plant biotechnology innovation.

“Agracetus was the first in the world to engineer soybean, first in the world to engineer cotton, first in the world to field-test a genetically engineered plant,” recalls Brill, who was recruited by Cetus to establish the lab in the early 1980s. “Thus, the Madison area and the UW influence led to historically important events.”

In December 2016, the $10 million,100,000-square-foot facility—a warren of labs, greenhouses and growth chambers—was donated to UW–Madison by Monsanto to become the Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center (WCIC).

The hope, according to agronomy professor Shawn Kaeppler BS’87—now WCIC’s director—is that the center will add to its string of plant biotechnology achievements as one of just a few public facilities in the country dedicated to plant transformation, where genetically modified plant cells are taken from tissue culture and regenerated into large numbers of complete fertile plants.

The advent of the WCIC “is an unprecedented opportunity to add capabilities and capacity we couldn’t afford otherwise,” says Kaeppler, an expert on corn. Its acquisition by UW–Madison, he and others note, comes at an opportune time as powerful new techniques in synthetic biology are poised to make the development of plants with new or improved traits much more than a shot in the dark with a gene gun.

WCIC will function very much like a core facility, providing cell culture, phenotyping and plant transformation services for researchers at UW– Madison and other universities. It is also coming online at a time when the need for such resources is acute.

“There is a recognized need nationally,” explains agronomy professor Heidi Kaeppler BS’87, an expert in plant transformation who is serving as WCIC’s transformation technology director. “There are just a few public facilities around the U.S. and demand is outpacing the abilities of those facilities. It is a bottleneck.”

For researchers like bacteriology and agronomy professor Jean-Michel Ané, a member of the WCIC scientific advisory board, the new center means he will be able to devote more time to exploring such things as the genetic interplay that occurs when plants and bacteria collude to draw nutrients from the air through the act of nitrogen fixation.

Nitrogen-fixing plants such as soybean, alfalfa and clover are staples of modern agriculture. They are essential to the crop rotation practices that prevent exhaustion of soil from crops such as corn. Ané and many other scientists have long dreamed of engineering the ability to fix nitrogen into plants like corn to transcend the need for expensive and environmentally harmful chemical fertilizers.

However, engineering complex traits such as nitrogen fixation in plants that don’t have that innate ability is a monumental scientific and technological undertaking. To begin with, there are two organisms—the plant and a bacterium—working cooperatively. Each has its own genome, and many different genes from each organism are in play to accommodate the act of drawing life-sustaining nutrients from the air.

To confer that trait on corn, for example, is an exercise far more complicated than tinkering with one or a few genes, notes Ané. “The goal is to create maize that has this association. However, modifying a single gene will not be sufficient,” he says. “We modify many genes at a time. There is a lot of trial and error. We need to try many combinations.”

Those combinations come about in the lab as scientists alter individual plant cells by adding or subtracting genes of interest. Today, scientists can harness new techniques such as CRISPR– Cas9—a fast, cheap and accurate genome editing tool—and potent new cloning technologies that allow scientists to easily assemble multiple DNA fragments and their assorted genes into novel sequences.

Even with potent new tools like CRISPR–Cas9, engineering plants is a big, difficult task. A gene needs to be dropped in the right place on the genome and be in association with the right “promoters,” segments of DNA that initiate gene transcription, the first step toward expressing a new gene in an organism. Once plant cells are genetically altered, they must be transformed into large numbers of actual plants for further testing in the lab and, ultimately, the field. It is essential to know, for example, that the new genetic construct is stable, that the new genes are passed from generation to generation, and what effects they may have on plant growth or yield.

The promise of WCIC, Ané believes, will be the opportunity to work through all of those steps more efficiently and cost-effectively, and carry projects from the lab to the field much faster.

“We can focus on really doing science instead of growing plants,” Ané says. “We can now make genetic constructs very quickly. Within a month we can make hundreds of constructs. The limiting aspect is plant transformation. However, the scale of transformation we can do at WCIC allows us to think seriously about applying synthetic biology to plants.”

To begin with, WCIC is providing plant transformation services for corn, soybean and sorghum, big commercially important crop species. But Shawn Kaeppler envisions WCIC playing a role, as well, with crop plants that have not yet risen to the top of commercial research agendas.

To date, commercial interest has focused primarily on just a handful of traits—insect and herbicide resistance—in a handful of widely planted crops. Uncharted territory, Kaeppler says, exists in the full range of crop plants and their many different traits.

A ready example is switchgrass, a native perennial that is under the microscope at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), a U.S. Department of Energy- funded multi-institutional research center headquartered on the UW–Madison campus. The grass is seen as a potential feedstock for converting its biomass to liquid fuel. However, efficient conversion of plant materials to energy remains a challenge, and plant genetics will play a big role in refining the traits that will make that possible.

“WCIC will help lead us to the next generation of crop breeding and plant genetics,” explains Kate VandenBosch, the dean of CALS, referencing, broadly, the genetic makeup of the crop plants in play. “Scientific agencies at the federal level have invested a lot in understanding genomes, but we still have a lot of work to do to understand how those genes function.”

Indeed, genetic sequencing technologies have advanced to the point where new plant genomes are sequenced with increasing regularity. The genomes of crop plants like watermelon, cucumber, potato, soybean, wheat, corn and many others have been sequenced, but as VandenBosch notes, exploring those sequences to identify the genes that govern plant traits is an unexplored frontier.

Shawn Kaeppler’s own research, for example, is a window to both the complexity and opportunity that lurk in the genomes of plants. One of his interests is the complex of genes—involving anywhere from tens to hundreds of genes—that governs the root architecture of corn. Knowing more about the combination of genes that directs the plant to send shoots into the soil, it might one day be possible to engineer a plant that can send its roots deeper into the earth, providing farmers with a hedge against drought.

“Fifty to 70 percent of all maize genes are expressed in roots,” Kaeppler says. “Some control processes in all parts of a plant, and some specifically control root development and response to environmental stimuli.”

A gene of interest for Kaeppler and his team is one that influences root angle. “Altering root angle even five to 10 degrees can dramatically increase the rate that roots get deep in the soil,” as well as how much root biomass a plant lays down at depth, he explains.

Identifying those candidate genes and mutations of those genes means they can be selected and manipulated in the laboratory to generate plants with different root structures. At WCIC, those plants can be grown in quantity, their new qualities studied and, if promising, tested in the field. The goal, of course, is to provide a practical outcome that is useful to growers.

In plant science, numbers matter. The more plants you can grow to test a new genetic combination, the better, as there are so many variables in play.

“In many aspects of science, doing things on a large scale is critical,” says biochemistry professor Rick Amasino, an expert on flowering in plants. “To have WCIC in our capability is great. Large-scale transformation opens up a lot of possibilities.”

Amasino, who is also a member of WCIC’s scientific advisory board, views the center as an important new national resource. Individual labs, he explains, do not have the same capacity.

“This has the potential to be on a scale greater than any other university’s,” Amasino says. “Individual labs can’t generate the hundreds or thousands of transgenic plants needed to fully test certain hypotheses. Labs around the country and, hopefully, around the world can now do experiments they couldn’t otherwise do. There are so many opportunities out there.”

A Facility With Deep CALS Roots

The name is new, but the Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center (WCIC) holds a prominent place in the young history of agricultural biotechnology. The facility also has long and deep ties to CALS researchers and alumni.

Originally known as Cetus of Madison, Inc., the Middleton facility—owned by
the Cetus Corporation of Emeryville, California—opened in 1981 under the direction of CALS bacteriology professor Winston Brill. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) played a key funding role in the early days of the company.

Cetus of Madison, Inc. initially focused on evaluating and testing a wide variety of natural rhizobia species to better understand their role in nitrogen fixation and nodulation in legumes, with the hope of someday enabling maize to have that capacity.

As interest in biotechnology grew in the early 1980s, the facility’s focus changed to inventing and innovating ways to introduce genes into plants. In 1984, Cetus Corp. sold half of its interest in Cetus of Madison, Inc. to the WR Grace Co.—and thus the company name “Agracetus” was born.

Great discoveries followed. An electric “gene gun” and transformation methods developed at Agracetus revolutionized the plant transformation process. Many plant species were subsequently transformed, including tobacco, peanut, sunflower, soybean, maize, cotton, cranberry, canola, poplar, wheat and rice. CALS researchers Kenneth Raffa, Brent McCown PhD’69 and Elden Stang, as well as WCIC associate director Michael Petersen BS’87 (then still an undergraduate) and Richard Heinzen MS’74, collaborated with Agracetus scientists during that period. But that wasn’t the only significant research taking place. Other studies critical to agricultural improvement focused on cotton fiber quality, transformation process improvements, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method development, insect and disease resistance and herbicide tolerance. A number of CALS faculty, including Michael Sussman, Richard Amasino and Andrew Bent, were highly involved in consulting with Agracetus in many of these areas.

In 1990, WR Grace Co. acquired full ownership of Agracetus. During the early 1990s, Agracetus ventured into research in DNA vaccines—using an improved “gene gun”—and contracted plant transformation services to others within the industry, including, most notably, the Monsanto Company. Collaborating with biological systems engineering professor Richard Straub PhD’80 (now CALS senior associate dean) and other CALS researchers, the company also worked on producing industrial enzymes in plants.

After successfully generating plants that eventually became commercial products
for Monsanto, including Roundup Ready Soybeans and Bollgard Cotton, the facility was acquired by Monsanto in 1996.

Over the next 20 years, Monsanto used the facility as its primary site for soybean and cotton transformation. Other R&D at the site included corn, canola, wheat, rice and alfalfa transformation, gene expression, molecular testing and seed chipping/genotyping.

The site was considered a “center of excellence” for Monsanto due to its highly innovative employees, high throughput transformation capabilities and ability to consistently perform above and beyond expectations.

In July of 2016, Monsanto relocated a number of remote functions back to its St. Louis headquarters in the interest of business consolidation. In the hope that the Middleton facility would continue to work toward the betterment of agriculture, Monsanto the following December donated it to longtime collaborator the University of Wisconsin– Madison, along with University Research Park.

Not surprisingly, given the long history of CALS involvement, agronomy professor Shawn Kaeppler BS’87 was chosen to serve as facility director.

The Greenhouse as a Public Classroom

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Just as some seeds yield tomatoes, carrots and lettuce, others grow community and partnership.

In a greenhouse in the northern Wisconsin town of Park Falls, all of those seeds are taking root with the help of CALS horticulture graduate student Michael Geiger, horticulture professor Sara Patterson and a team of dedicated local leaders.

“The greenhouse has opened doors to making healthier food choices, to education about gardening in local schools—and it’s given the university a presence in Park Falls,” says Geiger, who grew up in Arbor Vitae, some 50 miles away.

Geiger’s involvement with the Flambeau River Community Growing Center started four years ago when a friend in the area approached him for advice. Her group was seeking funding for a greenhouse project, and Geiger teamed with Patterson to identify possible revenue sources. They developed a proposal for the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment at UW–Madison.

By fall 2013, construction had begun on a 25-by- 50-foot vail-style greenhouse, built by community volunteers on a vacant lot donated by Flambeau River Papers just north of the mill. Plans call for the facility to eventually be heated with waste steam from the mill.

The Flambeau River Community Growing Center has gained popularity with community members and school groups interested in learning about plants and gardening. “It’s a greenhouse, but it’s also a classroom,” says Geiger.

Learners include children from the Chequamegon School District, who start seeds in the greenhouse and nurture seedlings until they can be transplanted to their own school gardens. Area 4–H groups grow plants and tend them in raised beds just outside the greenhouse. Master Gardener classes are held at the facility, and community workshops have included such topics as square-foot and container gardening as well as hydroponics. Kids have been delighted with sessions on soil testing and painting their own flowerpots.

“It’s clearly a benefit to build a connection between UW–Madison and the community, for the community itself—people from ages 3 to 90—and for the local schools,” Patterson says.

Community leaders and institutions have joined to fuel the center’s success. Its chief executive officer, Tony Thier, recently retired from Flambeau River Papers; UW–Extension has provided valuable educational and technical support; and volunteer opportunities draw professionals from various companies in the area. Park Falls attorney Janet Marvin helped the center gain nonprofit status last fall.

Thier says the center provides needed education for area residents. “It’s been very beneficial,” he says. “When I got involved, it really became a passion. I wanted to learn more about gardening and increase my skill. We try to involve the whole community.”

Geiger says the project has helped him in his academic career as he learned about project planning, gave presentations about the center at two national academic conferences and writes scholarly articles about his work there.

“I’ve been able to see this process through from an idea to reality,” says Geiger. “It’s been really rewarding.”

PHOTO – Michael Geiger (right) in the greenhouse at a hydroponic salad table workshop. The greenhouse features in-floor radiant heating and custom growing tables made of locally purchased white cedar and built by volunteers.

Photo credit – Michael Geiger

The Road from Farm to Market

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Consumer demand for regionally produced food is on the rise. But transportation and distribution logistics for mid-size shippers, distributors and farmers can be tricky. These supply chain partners are looking for ways to more efficiently move products from Wisconsin’s farms to markets, while upholding many of their customers’ sustainability values.

That’s where the CALS-based Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) comes in. CIAS is working with university and private-sector partners to bring regionally grown food to urban markets while growing rural economies and addressing the environmental impacts of food freight.

“When people think of local food, they think of farmers markets and community-supported agriculture,” says Michelle Miller BS’83, associate director of programs for CIAS. “While these direct markets are the gold standard for connecting us with the people who grow our food, they don’t address the need to get more high-quality regional products into grocery stores, restaurants and schools.”

Consumers tend to believe that food is more sustainable if it travels a short distance from farm to table. However, a USDA study found that compared to direct markets, the large truckloads and logistical efficiencies found in the conventional food system sometimes use less fuel per food item transported.

Helping mid-size farmers move full truckloads of their products into wholesale markets is one way to build a more resilient regional economy. However, farmers face numerous challenges when shifting from direct to wholesale marketing. Product aggregation is one major hurdle, as wholesale public markets for assembling farmers’ wares have largely disappeared from the landscape.

The Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative (WFHC), founded in 2012, helps fill that gap by providing sales, marketing and logistical support for its 37 farmer-owners, with sales of $1.7 million in 2015 and anticipated sales of $2.5 million in 2016.

CIAS helped WFHC implement retail product quality specifications and food safety requirements. Access to CALS expertise in those areas has made a big difference for their business, according to WFHC development director Sarah Lloyd.

“Most retail outlets require growers to obtain voluntary food safety certifications,” says Lloyd. “The help we’ve received in working through this maze of regulations has been critical.”

According to Miller, much more work is needed to help Wisconsin growers move their products into regional metro markets. CIAS is investigating fair trade strategies to provide equitable compensation for farmers. The center is working closely with city, county and regional partners to increase food processing and related food systems economic development in southern Wisconsin. CIAS is also researching more sustainable truck fleets using alternative fuels, hybrid electric engines and day cabs.

“We can gain efficiencies across the food system, at the farm level and in the way we move food to markets,” says Miller. “Ultimately we want to make it easier for consumers to support Wisconsin farmers.”

Tara Roberts-Turner, a founding farmer and business manager of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative, loads fresh produce onto a truck bound for Chicago.

Photo credit – Tara Roberts-Turner 

To Market, to Market

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If you’re familiar with the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS), you no doubt know all about Stephen Babcock and his test that more than 100 years ago revolutionized the dairy industry by providing an inexpensive, easy way to determine the fat content of milk (thus preventing dishonest farmers from watering it down). What you might not know is that his great discovery went unpatented. The only money Babcock received for his invention was $5,000 as part of a Capper Award—given for distinguished service to agriculture—in 1930.

Just years before Babcock received that award, another entrepreneur was hard at work in his lab—and his discovery would break ground not only in science, but also in direct remuneration for the university.

In 1923, Harry Steenbock discovered that irradiating food increased its vitamin D content, thus treating rickets, a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency. After using $300 of his own money to patent his irradiation technique, Steenbock recognized the value of such patents to the university. He became influential in the formation in 1925 of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a technology transfer office that patents UW–Madison innovations and returns the proceeds back to the university.

Discoveries have continued flowing from CALS, and WARF plays a vital role for researchers wanting to patent and license their ideas. But today’s innovators and entrepreneurs have some added help: a new program called Discovery to Product, or D2P for short.

Established in 2013, and co-funded by UW–Madison and WARF, D2P has two main goals: to bring ideas to market through the formation of startup companies, and to serve as an on-campus portal for entrepreneurs looking for help. Together, WARF and D2P form a solid support for researchers looking to move their ideas to market. That was the intent of then-UW provost Paul DeLuca and WARF managing director Carl Gulbrandsen in conceiving of the program.

“The idea of D2P is to make available a set of skills and expertise that was previously unavailable to coach people with entrepreneurial interests,” explains Leigh Cagan, WARF’s chief technology commercialization officer and a D2P board member. “There needed to be a function like that inside the university, and it would be hard for WARF to do that from the outside as a separate entity, which it is.”

D2P gained steam after its initial conception under former UW–Madison chancellor David Ward, and the arrival of Rebecca Blank as chancellor sealed the deal.

“Chancellor Blank, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was interested in business and entrepreneurship. D2P really started to move forward when she was hired,” says Mark Cook, a CALS professor of animal sciences. Cook, who holds more than 40 patented technologies, launched the D2P plan and served as interim D2P director and board chair.

With the light green and operational funds from WARF and the University secured, D2P was on its way. But for the program to delve into one of its goals— helping entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market—additional funding was needed.

For that money, Cook and DeLuca put together a proposal for an economic development grant from the University of Wisconsin System. They were awarded $2.4 million, and the Igniter Fund was born. Because the grant was good only for two years, the search for projects to support with the new funds started right away.

By mid-2014, veteran entrepreneur John Biondi was on board as director, project proposals were coming in and D2P was in business. To date, 25 projects have gone through the Igniter program, which provides funding and guidance for projects at what Biondi calls the technical proof of concept stage. Much of the guidance comes from mentors-in-residence, experienced entrepreneurs that walk new innovators down the path to commercialization.

“For Igniter projects, they need to demonstrate that their innovation works, that they’re not just at an early idea stage,” explains Biondi. “Our commitment to those projects is to stay with them from initial engagement until one of three things happen: they become a startup company; they get licensed or we hand them over to WARF for licensing; or we determine this project might not be commercial after all.”

For projects that may not be destined for startup or that need some additional development before going to market, the collaboration between WARF and D2P becomes invaluable. WARF can patent and license discoveries that may not be a good fit for a startup company. They also provide money, called Accelerator funding, for projects that need some more proof of concept. Innovations that may not be ready for Igniter funds, but that are of potential interest to WARF, can apply for these funds to help them move through the earlier stages toward market.

“Some projects receive both Accelerator and Igniter funding,” says Cagan. “Some get funding from one and not the other. But we work together closely and the programs are being administered with a similar set of goals. We’re delighted by anything that helps grow entrepreneurial skills, companies and employment in this area.”

With support and funding from both WARF and D2P, entrepreneurship on campus is flourishing. While the first batch of Igniter funding has been allocated, Biondi is currently working to secure more funds for the future. In the meantime, he and others involved in the program make it clear that the other aspect of D2P—its mission to become a portal and resource for entrepreneurs on campus—is going strong.

“We want to be the go-to place where entrepreneurs come to ask questions on campus, the starting point for their quest down the entrepreneurial path,” says Biondi.

It’s a tall order, but it’s a goal that all those associated with D2P feel strongly about. Brian Fox, professor and chair of biochemistry at CALS and a D2P advisory board member, echoes Biondi’s thoughts.

“D2P was created to fill an important role on campus,” Fox says. “That is to serve as a hub, a knowledge base for all the types of entrepreneurship that might occur on campus and to provide expertise to help people think about moving from the lab to the market. That’s a key value of D2P.”

Over the past two years, D2P, in collaboration with WARF, has served as precisely that for the 25 Igniter projects and numerous other entrepreneurs looking for help, expertise and inspiration on their paths from innovation to market. The stories of these four CALS researchers serve to illustrate the program’s value.

Reducing Antibiotics in Food Animals

Animal sciences professor Mark Cook, in addition to helping establish D2P, has a long record of innovation and entrepreneurship. His latest endeavor, a product that has the potential to do away with antibiotics in animals used for food, could have huge implications for the animal industry. And as he explains it, the entire innovation was unintentional.

“It was kind of a mistake,” he says with a laugh. “We were trying to make an antibody”—a protein used by the immune system to neutralize pathogens—“that would cause gut inflammation in chickens and be a model for Crohn’s disease or inflammatory bowel disease.”

To do this, Cook’s team vaccinated hens so they would produce a particular antibody that could then be sprayed on feed of other chickens. That antibody is supposed to cause inflammation in the chickens that eat the food. The researchers’ model didn’t appear to work. Maybe they had to spark inflammation, give it a little push, they thought. So they infected the birds with a common protozoan disease called coccidia.

“Jordan Sand, who was doing this work, came to me with the results of that experiment and again said, ‘It didn’t work,’” explains Cook. “When I looked at the data, I saw it was just the opposite of what we expected. The antibody had protected the animals against coccidia, the main reason we feed antibiotics to poultry. We knew right away this was big.”

The possibilities of such an innovation—an antibiotic-free method for controlling disease—are huge as consumers demand antibiotic-free food and companies look for ways to accommodate those demands. With that potential in hand, things moved quickly for Cook and Sand. They filed patents through WARF, collaborated with faculty colleagues and conducted experiments to test other animals and determine the best treatment methods. More research was funded through the WARF Accelerator program, and it became clear that this technology could provide the basis for a startup company.

While Cook didn’t receive funds from D2P to bring the product to market, he and Sand used D2P’s consulting services throughout their work—and continue to do so. Between WARF funding and help from D2P, Cook says starting the current company, Ab E Discovery, has been dramatically different from his previous startup experiences.

“D2P is a game changer,” says Cook. “In other cases, there was no structure on campus to help. When you had a technology that wasn’t going to be licensed, you had to figure out where to get the money to start a company. There were no resources available, so you did what you could, through trial and error, and hoped. Now with WARF and D2P working together, there’s both technical de-risking and market de-risking.”

The combination of WARF and D2P has certainly paid off for Cook and Sand. They have a team and a CEO, and are now producing product. Interest in the product is immense, Cook says. He’d like to see the company grow and expand—and stay in Wisconsin.

“It’s been a dream of mine to make Wisconsin a centerpiece in this technology,” Cook says. “I’d like to see the structure strong here in Wisconsin, so that even when it’s taken over, it’ll be a Wisconsin company. That’s my hope.”

Better Corn for Biofuel

Corn is a common sight in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, but it’s actually more of a tropical species. As the growing regions for corn move farther north, a corn hybrid has to flower and mature more quickly to produce crop within a shorter growing season. That flowering time is determined by the genetics of the corn hybrid.

Conversely, delayed flowering is beneficial for other uses of corn. For example, when flowering is delayed, corn can produce more biomass instead of food, and that biomass can then be used as raw material to make biofuel.

The genetics of different hybrids controls their flowering time and, therefore, how useful they are for given purposes or growing regions. Shawn Kaeppler, a professor of agronomy, is working to better understand those genes and how various hybrids can best fit a desired function. Much of his work is done in collaboration with fellow agronomy professor Natalia de Leon.

“We look across different populations and cross plants to produce progeny with different flowering times,” Kaeppler explains. “Then we use genetic mapping strategies to understand which genes are important for those traits.”

Throughout his work with plant genetics, Kaeppler has taken full advantage of resources for entreprenuers on campus. He has patents filed or pending, and he has also received Accelerator funds through WARF. For his project looking at the genetics behind flowering time, Kaeppler and graduate student Brett Burdo received Igniter funds from D2P as well. The Igniter program has proven invaluable for Kaeppler and Burdo as they try to place their innovation in the best position for success.

“I found the Igniter program very useful, to go through the process of understanding what it takes to get a product to market,” says Kaeppler. “It also includes funding for some of the steps in the research and for some of the time that’s spent. I can’t fund my graduate student off a federal grant to participate in something like this, so the Igniter funding allowed for correct portioning of funding.”

The end goal of Kaeppler’s project is to develop a transgenic plant as a research model and license the technology, not develop a startup company. His team is currently testing transgenic plants to work up a full package of information that interested companies would use to decide if they should license the technology. For Kaeppler, licensing is the best option since they can avoid trying to compete with big agricultural companies, and the technology will still get out to the market where it’s needed to create change.

“In this area of technology transfer, it is important not only to bring resources back to UW but also to participate in meeting the challenges the world is facing with increasing populations,” says Kaeppler. “Programs like D2P and WARF are critical at this point in time to see the potential of these discoveries realized.”

A Diet to Treat Disease

Around the world, about 60,000 people are estimated to have phenylketonuria, or PKU. Those with the inherited disorder are unable to process phenylalanine, a compound found in most foods. Treatment used to consist of a limited diet difficult to stomach. Then, about 13 years ago, nutritional sciences professor Denise Ney was approached to help improve that course of treatment.

Dietitians at UW–Madison’s Waisman Center wanted someone to research use of a protein isolated from cheese whey—called glycomacropeptide, or GMP—as a dietary option for people living with PKU. Ney took on the challenge, and with the help of a multidisciplinary team, a new diet composition for PKU patients was patented and licensed.

“Mine is not a typical story,” says Ney, who also serves as a D2P advisory board member. “Things happened quickly and I can’t tell you why, other than hard work, a good idea and the right group of people. We’ve had help from many people—including our statistician Murray Clayton, a professor of plant pathology and statistics, and the Center for Dairy Research—which helped with development of the foods and with sensory analysis.”

Being at the right place at the right time had a lot to do with her success thus far, Ney notes. “I’m not sure this could have happened many places in the world other than on this campus because we have all the needed components—the Waisman Center for care of patients with PKU, the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, the clinical research unit at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics, and faculty with expertise in nutritional sciences and food science,” she says.

Ney is currently wrapping up a major clinical trial of the food formulations, referred to as GMP medical foods, that she and her team developed. In addition to those efforts, the new diet has also shown surprising promise in two other, seemingly unrelated, areas: weight loss and osteoporosis prevention.

“My hypothesis, which has been borne out with the research, is that GMP will improve bone strength and help prevent fractures, which are complications of PKU,” explains Ney. “I have a comprehensive study where I do analysis of bone structure and biomechanical performance, and I also get information about body fat. I observed that all of the mice that were fed GMP, whether they had PKU or not, had less body fat and the bones were bigger and stronger.” Interestingly, the response was greater in female compared with male mice.

To support further research on this new aspect of the project, Ney received Accelerator funds from WARF for a second patent issued in 2015 titled “Use of GMP to Improve Women’s Health.” Ney and her team, including nutritional sciences professor Eric Yen, are excited about the possibilities of food products made with GMP that may help combat obesity and also promote bone health in women.

“There is a huge market for such products,” says Ney. “We go from a considerably small group of PKU patients who can benefit from this to a huge market of women if this pans out. It’s interesting, because I think I’m kind of an unexpected success, an illustration of the untapped potential we have here on campus.”

Fewer Antibiotics in Ethanol Plants

Bacteria and the antibiotics used to kill them can cause significant problems in everything from food sources to biofuel. In biofuel production plants, bacteria that produce lactic acid compete with the wanted microbes producing ethanol. At low levels, these bacteria decrease ethanol production. At high levels, they can produce so much lactic acid that it stops fermentation and ethanol production altogether.

The most obvious solution for stopping these lactic acid bacteria would be antibiotics. But as in other industries, antibiotics can cause problems. First, they can be expensive for ethanol producers to purchase and add to their workflow. The second issue is even more problematic.

“A by-product of the ethanol industry is feed,” explains James Steele, a professor of food science. “Most of the corn kernel goes toward ethanol and what remains goes to feed. And it’s excellent animal feed.”

But if antibiotics are introduced into the ethanol plant, that animal feed byproduct can’t truly be called antibioticfree. That’s a problem as more and more consumers demand antibiotic-free food sources. But Steele and his colleagues have a solution—a way to block the negative effects of lactic acid bacteria without adding antibiotics.

“We’ve taken the bacteria that produce lactic acid and re-engineered it to produce ethanol,” says Steele. “These new bacteria, then, compete with the lactic acid bacteria and increase ethanol production. Ethanol plants can avoid the use of antibiotics, eliminating that cost and increasing the value of their animal feed by-product.”

The bacteria that Steele and his team have genetically engineered can play an enormous role in reducing antibiotic use. But that benefit of their innovation didn’t immediately become their selling point. Rather, their marketing message was developed through help from D2P and the Igniter program.

“Learning through D2P completely changed how we position our product and how we interact with the industry,” says Steele. And through that work with D2P, Steele plans to later this year incorporate a company called Lactic Solutions. “D2P has helped us with the finance, the organization, the science, everything. Every aspect of starting a business has been dealt with.”

Steele and his collaborators are now working to refine their innovation and ideas for commercialization using Accelerator funds from WARF. Steele’s work, supported by both WARF and D2P, is a perfect example of how the entities are working together to successfully bring lab work to the market.

“There is no doubt in my mind that we would not be where we are today without D2P,” says Steele. “On top of that you add WARF, and the two together is what really makes it so special. There’s nothing else like it at other campuses.”

With such a strong partnership campaigning for and supporting entrepreneurship at UW–Madison, CALS’ strong history of innovation is poised to endure far into the future, continuing to bring innovations from campus to the world. And that is the embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea.

 

Training to Make a Difference

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People have around 40 productive years during adulthood to make a positive impact on the world, according to Howard G. Buffett in his book, 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World.

It’s a concept that Kate Griswold BS’16, who graduated in May with a degree in life sciences communication, is keenly aware of.

Griswold was among 40 college students nationwide selected in 2012 to participate in the nonprofit Agriculture Future of America’s 40 Chances Fellows program. The goal of the four-year program, funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s 40 Chances awareness campaign, is to prepare young people to address global agriculture- and food-related challenges.

“I’m passionate about international food security and transparency in the American agricultural system,” says Griswold. “Thanks to my experiences, I feel excited and ready to go out into the workforce and help contribute to the conversations—and solutions—related to these important topics.”

Griswold and her cohort participated in leadership conferences, agricultural institutes, career mentoring sessions and professional development workshops. The program culminated in a two-and-a-half-week international experience—which, for Griswold and eight other students, meant going to Bolivia.

Guided by native Bolivians, the students visited processing plants and production facilities as well as farmers in various regions. Two of the country’s main crops are soybeans and quinoa, a small, gluten-free grain that is highly nutritious and growing in popularity worldwide. But according to Griswold, “Bolivia, which is one of the biggest producers of quinoa, is still one of the poorest countries in South America.”

A key lesson, Griswold says, is that education alone is not enough to change the standard of living and way of life in other cultures.

“The fact that there isn’t an easy fix to get people out of poverty is something I’ve learned to appreciate a lot more,” says Griswold. “I now have a much better understanding of the time it takes to implement change and the trust that needs to be built with the local people in order to do so.”

As a fresh graduate, Griswold is using the first of her 40 chances by joining John Deere as a marketing representative.

Photo Credit – Kate Griswold 

New Frontiers for No-Till

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New Frontiers for No-TillWhen Jason Cavadini, assistant superintendent of the CALS-based Marshfield Agricultural Research Station, first started working at the station in spring 2013, he was told that no-till wouldn’t work in the area, with its heavy, poorly drained soils. But he still wanted to give it a try.

“Here in central Wisconsin, a big concern is, what do we do with the water? How do we get it to drain better? If no-till allows the soil to do that naturally, in our opinion it’s the best way,” says Cavadini. His interest in the method stems from experience on his family’s farm near La Crosse, where they have successfully used no-till planting for nearly 20 years.

Conventional tillage often involves turning and pulverizing the soil before planting with multiple passes of a tractor to chisel-plow, disk and smooth out the field. There are many advantages to this approach, including setting back weeds, helping the soil to dry and ensuring good seed-to-soil contact. However, it’s also fraught with issues such as soil compaction and erosion.

No-till, on the other hand, involves the use of a planter that seeds directly into the soil without the complete disruption and inversion of the surface. This alternative option, which has been shown to work well in other areas with other soil types, has reduced environmental impacts and helps build long-term soil structure. There’s also an economic benefit. “Fewer trips across the field with equipment means less fuel used,” notes Cavadini. “We have cut fuel usage and labor associated with spring planting by more than 50 percent since implementing no-till.”

Making the switch to no-till, however, involves some trial and error. Cavadini thought, “What better place to give it a try than the Marshfield station?”

“We started a group we’re calling Central Wisconsin No-Tillers,” Cavadini says. “We set a planter here on the station with different combinations of no-till tools. After we finished planting in the spring of 2014, we invited people to the station and told them what we found with our research planter. About 10 farmers showed up, but it was a very productive meeting, and we tried to address things that they were questioning.”

When Cavadini held a meeting for the group the following year, 46 farmers appeared.

So far, the no-till approach is working well at Marshfield, and the research station has expanded its use to include more crops. Corn was the starting point—“We experienced some of our highest corn yields ever on the station this year in no-till fields,” notes Cavadini—and now about 80 percent of the station’s plantings are done with no-till, including soybeans, wheat and alfalfa.

“A long-term, no-till soil that is firm at the surface but takes in water readily is what we are really trying to achieve here,” Cavadini says. “If we are successful, that will solve a lot of the challenges that central Wisconsin farmers face here every year.”

PHOTO—Jason Cavadini has had success with no-till on crops at the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station.

Photo by Sevie Kenyon BS’80 MS’06

Milk, Motherhood and the Dairy Cow

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In the 1990s, dairy farmers were seeing a troubling trend in their herds. As cows produced more milk, their reproductive performance declined. This downward slope in reproduction, related to changes in the hormone metabolism of high-producing cows, spurred researchers into action. And CALS scientists found a solution—a reproductive synchronization system that could save Wisconsin dairy farmers more than $50 million each year.

“The development of these systems has been one of the greatest technological advances in dairy cattle reproduction since artificial insemination,” says Paul Fricke, a CALS professor of dairy science and a UW–Extension specialist. “It is highly, highly significant.”

For the past 20 years, Fricke has been working on the synchronization systems with fellow dairy science professor Milo Wiltbank. The systems, called Ovsynch, consist of treatments with naturally occurring hormones and are based on Wiltbank’s research into the basic biology of the cow reproductive cycle. The hormonal treatments synchronize the cycles so that farmers know when their cows are most likely to become pregnant.

Pregnancy rates in a herd are a product of two numbers: the service rate (the percentage of eligible cows that are inseminated) and the conception rate (the number of inseminated cows that become pregnant). Historically, farmers relied on visually recognizing when cows were in heat in order to time insemination—a tricky feat that often resulted in missed opportunities and low service rates.
“One of the biggest problems in dairy cattle reproduction is seeing the cows in heat,” says Fricke. “If you can proactively control the reproductive cycle, you can inseminate cows without waiting for them to show heat.”

Synchronization systems take the guesswork out of insemination, increasing service rates and pregnancy rates. Since the technology was first published in the mid-1990s, Fricke, Wiltbank and their colleagues have worked to optimize the systems. Researchers now see conception rates of more than 50 percent, and pregnancy rates of 30 percent or higher. Just 15 years ago, average conception and pregnancy rates were around 35 and 15 percent, respectively. A 30 percent pregnancy rate in herds producing high volumes of milk was unimaginable.

With impressive pregnancy rates and the safety of the system—the natural hormones used are short-lived and do not end up in food products—researchers and farmers alike are excited about further adoption of the technology. The payoff is substantial, considering the costs and benefits of breeding dairy cows, says Kent Weigel, professor and chair of the Department of Dairy Science.

“If we say that this technology will result in a 6 percent improvement in pregnancy rates, and we assume that it costs about $4 for each extra day that a cow is not pregnant, the technology could save Wisconsin dairy farmers about $58 million per year with just 50 percent of farmers using it,” explains Weigel. “This is a prime example of basic biology that turned out to have a practical application with huge economic benefits.”

PHOTO—Dairy scientist Paul Fricke has developed a way to inseminate cows before they show signs of being in heat.

Photo by Sevie Kenyon BS’80 MS’06

For the Love of Plants

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Irwin Goldman PhD’91, professor and chair of the Department of Horticulture, is an eminent researcher in vegetable breeding and genetics, with a particular interest in carrot, onion and table beet. His lab has bred numerous cultivars that have been used to make commercial hybrids grown by farmers all around the world. He and his laboratory currently hold more than 75 active germplasm licenses, some of which are handled through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

But in spite of Goldman’s prowess in both research and administration—he has served CALS as an associate dean and a vice dean, and as interim dean some five years ago—teaching remains one of his greatest passions. “Our most important job in serving the public is to make sure our students can obtain what they came to the university to get: a top-notch education,” says Goldman. “I see this as one of the primary reasons for being placed here by the people of Wisconsin.” He brings that devotion to the many kinds of students he teaches: from the graduate students under his research wing and the horticulture majors he advises to undergraduates and other learners who may not be science majors at all.

And students clearly benefit from his dedication. Claudia Roen BS’15, until recently a student assistant in the CALS communication office, was a senior biology major last fall when she took Goldman’s class, “Plants and Human Wellbeing.” She found it so enlightening that she was moved to conduct the following interview to learn more about both a fascinating subject—and what excites Goldman about teaching it.

What inspired you to teach Plants and Human Wellbeing?

I have been desperate to teach this class for probably 10 years, and I love this material, but it hadn’t previously fit into any of the courses I was teaching. I remember very clearly one January day over winter break sitting at my
dining room table reading about the spice trade—and thinking, if I don’t just say I’m going to do this and put
this class together, it won’t happen.

At that moment I began to write a syllabus and presented it to the department with the hope of teaching it the following fall. That was a few Januarys ago.

What do you hope students will take away from this course?

The whole point is connecting to plants and plant-derived materials and asking, where does this come from? How does it serve us? It’s a way of thinking about the world. If you approach the world that way, it’s part of being an educated person.

For example, one topic covered in the course is aspirin. There are natural compounds in plants that serendipitously have these health-improving effects on humans. What did we do with that information? There’s an industry created around it, and what does that look like? We can apply these questions to a number of plants used in pharmaceuticals.

Or in another lecture we discussed the tale of Johnny Appleseed and the history of the apple in America. Afterward we sampled more than a dozen apple varieties. Partly it’s a gimmick, but for people who have only ever eaten a Red Delicious, it may be surprising to try something very different.

When I was 18 or 19 I lacked exposure to a lot of things. One of my professors brought in mate. In Argentina it’s like drinking coffee, but to me at the time, it was so exotic. I feel that if I can supplement the lessons with things to eat, things to try and taste, I can provide some exposure to the diversity of what’s out there.

Have you found that there is one topic in particular that seems to excite or engage the students?

The treatment of human beings in the production of food that we consider to be delicacies is probably the most important to them, and it’s the single most recurring topic that students write about in their reflection papers. And that’s a good sign—the fact that they have begun to think critically about food production in ways that may change their behavior or make them think differently about the world.

A good example is the lecture on chocolate, which I think for many students is the first time they had heard about chocolate production and the negative working conditions, essentially slavery, associated with it. It is remarkable to listen to a worker from the cacao plantations who toils all day to produce chocolate for the Western world but who has never tasted chocolate. We discussed chocolate cultivation and its importance in our society, sampled several varieties of chocolate, and watched a video that featured cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast—which produces more cocoa than any country in the world—tasting chocolate for the first time after a lifetime of harvesting the crop.

Has teaching the class provided any surprising or unexpected lessons?

Regarding students, probably the most surprising thing for me is the tenderness—and I have to use that word—that people feel for plant materials. When you get them alone or uninhibited, it brings them to tears. At the end of the semester students are asked to present to the class something they’ve made from plant materials. Students have presented food, musical instruments, body lotions and more. They are deeply connected to certain things, and that comes across when they’re talking about something that is important to them, some dish that their mother makes. There’s something there that is very profound.

What kinds of students take the course?

I’ve had students from a wide range of backgrounds. People from Letters and Science, people from all over campus and beyond. I’ve had a handful of returning adult students, and I also had some senior auditors who were taking it because they thought it was an interesting subject that they could sit in on. It was a much wider array of students than I would typically have in a normal horticulture class.

People connect to this subject in different ways. Some people are interested in aromatherapy, or they’re interested in gardens—it’s a catch-all for all things that connect to plant materials.

How do you see this course as a reflection of the goals and the values of CALS?

A big part of our college’s mission has always been to make science and scientific knowledge accessible to a broad audience, and this course certainly accomplishes that. No prerequisites are required; it’s open to anyone who wants to explore the topic. Obviously a deeper understanding of how food is made and where it comes from is an integral part of CALS. CALS contains the whole spectrum, from the soil that we grow things in all the way to policy and legislation around food and everything in between—the genetics and the biochemistry involved in breeding and growing. I love that about CALS.

And the connection between plants and human wellbeing is a recurring theme across that spectrum.

What we study and teach in CALS often connects to outcomes that impact humans, and one of the most fundamental impacts we should consider is their wellbeing. In fact, I find that it may often guide some of our most important projects.

What are your hopes for the course, and where do you see it headed?

Up to now the course has been listed as a 375, meaning it’s an experimental course. When I presented the idea to the Department of Horticulture, I pledged to teach it for two years as an experimental course and if it worked out, I’d ask to make it a permanent number. Now I’m pleased to say that this course has been given the permanent number Horticulture 350, and it will be taught every fall semester.

Ultimately, I would like to make it available online or through some other medium—as a MOOC, perhaps—because I do think students and a wide range of other learners could get something out of this even if they weren’t in the room. I want to make it available to as many people as possible.

Terry Lensmire

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(Earned his first Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker certificate in 1997)

Terry Lensmire is a third-generation cheesemaker whose passion for the craft was instilled at an early age. He started making cheese as a child and continued throughout high school. In 1974 he earned his cheesemaker license and in 1982 became a licensed cheese grader. His knowledge and experience have expanded in a career that has included work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Land O’Lakes—and, currently, serving as product development manager at Agropur, a dairy cooperative based in Canada. Lensmire has been active in his craft outside the plant as well, serving as a cheese judge at the Wisconsin State Fair, at the Wisconsin Cheesemakers Association U.S. and World Cheese Contest, and at the World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest. Lensmire was in the first wave of Wisconsin Master Cheesemakers, receiving his certification in 1997 (the program started in 1994)—and he’s been a presenter at the Cheese Grading Short Course since it started at around the same time. He has since been certified in cheddar, Monterey Jack, mozzarella and provolone.

Bruce Workman

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(Earned his first Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker certificate in 1999)

As a five-time graduate of the program, Bruce Workman holds the most Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker certifications of anyone in the state. Workman is certified in a total of 11 cheeses: butterkase, baby Swiss, specialty Swiss, Emmentaler, raclette, Gruyere, Havarti, Gouda, brick, Muenster and cheddar. Workman began working in the industry before and after school at the age of 16, and at 18 he became a Wisconsin licensed cheesemaker. By 1999, when he received his first Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker certification, Workman had been working in a plant that produced mostly European cheeses. It was this experience that shaped his desire to pursue certification in European cheeses. At Edelweiss Creamery, located in Monticello, Wisconsin, Workman and his staff of 11 produce 23 cheeses, including many in which he is certified. Workman founded Edelweiss Creamery in the same location that has been home to cheesemaking since 1936. After 43 years of making cheese, Workman says he would like to slow down on his responsibilities in the production room and focus on training the next generation at Edelweiss.

Give: Hands-On Fieldwork

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Before last summer, Vera Swanson’s only exposure to plant sciences had been through classes in introductory biology. That changed big-time when Swanson, a junior majoring in environmental sciences and Russian, signed on to intern at the CALS-based Arlington Agricultural Research Station as a crop scout.

Crop scouts are used in agricultural management to diagnose stress factors in a field—such elements as potentially negative soil and climate conditions, the presence of pests, and threatened crop performance—and determine which management practices are appropriate for the goals of a specific plot. As part of her training, Swanson spent copious hours learning to identify weeds by walking through the fields and the Weed Garden, which displays dozens of invasive plants accompanied by their names.

Swanson paired her internship, which was run through the Department of Agronomy, with an independent research project involving biofuel crops being tested at Arlington. For that work Swanson drew on her growing knowledge of weeds to test the effect of three biofuel crop systems—native prairie, switchgrass and continuous corn—on the soil’s weed seed bank, or the viable seeds present in the soil and its surface. The project involved working one-on-one with research scientists in Randy Jackson’s grassland ecology lab. Jackson is running the crop trials through his affiliation with the UW’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, housed in the Wisconsin Energy Institute.

The intense focus on plants got Swanson thinking a lot more about soil. “It is such a finite resource, yet so much of what we depend on comes from it—our food, clothing and the materials that we build with,” says Swanson.

It also got her more interested in food systems, to the point where she chose to make horticulture a disciplinary focus within her major and a possible new career direction. “I’d love to work for an organization where I would be able to complement my interests in agriculture, development and language within a global context,” she says.

Swanson’s path exemplifies the power of “beyond classroom” experiences to dramatically shape, and in many cases transform, a student’s education and career goals. These experiences—which include internships, research projects, study abroad, honors thesis stipends, field courses and more—are the hallmark of a CALS education.

“They’re a big part of what makes CALS CALS—and they offer our students a major advantage in both their personal and professional development,” says Sarah Pfatteicher, the college’s associate dean for academic affairs. “Our goal is to ensure that each student can participate in at least four of these important opportunities.”

To help support the CALS Student Experience Fund, visit: http://go.wisc.edu/student-experience

Pam Hodgson

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(Earned her Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker certificate in 2013)

At the Sartori cheese company, based in Plymouth, Wisconsin, Pam Hodgson is responsible for developing new cheeses to meet desirable specifications, researching cheesemaking methods, and evaluating and addressing issues of quality. After graduating from CALS with a degree in dairy science, Hodgson began her career as a dairy nutritionist for a large cooperative. After starting a family, Hodgson wanted a job that required less travel, which led her to the science and art of cheesemaking. Her passion is deeply rooted in her family’s connection to the craft, she says. Her grandfather, a CALS Dairy School graduate, was an award-winning cheesemaker—and now her daughter is pursuing a career in cheesemaking as well. “Our cheesemaking genes must be pretty strong,” says Hodgson, who has Master Cheesemaker certifications in fontina and open hard cheeses.