Agriculture projects dominate innovation award nominees

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

Three agriculture-based research projects are among the four finalists for the annual Award of Innovation sponsored by Innovation Place and the Industry Liaison Office of the University of Saskatchewan.

The winning project receives a $5,000 cash prize and recognition at both Innovation Place and a gala dinner called “Celebrate Success,” put on by the Saskatoon and District Chamber of Commerce and the Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan.

“The technology developed by this year’s nominees has great potential to improve our lives through improvements in human health, food production and environmentally friendly energy,” said Doug Gill, Managing Director of the Industry Liaison Office. “We will also benefit from the promise of increased investment and more high-quality jobs in our province.”

The Award of Innovation is intended to honour U of S researchers who have brought new and commercially viable technology to the Industry Liaison Office for development into marketable products.

This year’s finalists offer an impressive mix.

Plant sciences professor Lawrence Gusta, along with his colleagues Albert Robertson and Guohai Wu, has discovered the Rob-5 gene in plants. This gene improves environmental stress tolerance, increases plant vigour and seed yield, and shortens the time required for plants to mature. It has particular value in regions with a shorter growing season, like Saskatchewan.

The U of S has filed an international patent application for the Rob-5 gene and signed an exclusive agreement to license BASF to commercialize it.

In the Department of Applied Microbiology and Food Science, researchers Martin Reaney, SAF Chair in Microbiology and Food Science, and Dushmmanthi Jayasinghe developed a chemical process that has the potential to improve profitability in biofuel generation. The process allows for the production of biodiesel, de-salted glycerol and lithium grease from oilseeds that are not suitable for edible oil products, such as frost-damaged canola.

This innovation would enable producers to make biodiesel and two other high-value products from the same feedstock. The patent on the process is pending.

Biology professor Vipen Sawhney is nominated for his work on a line of tomatoes that are particularly suited to hybrid seed production. The so-called “photoperiod-sensitive-male-sterile tomatoes” reduce the cost of hybrid seed production by eliminating the necessity for hand removal of the male part of tomato flowers, which is highly labour intensive.

The tomato line has already been licensed to a commercial seed producer in Italy.

The fourth nominee comes from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. Immunologists John Gordon and Fang Li have developed a human anti-inflammatory treatment that uses the protein

G31P to target inflammation associated with neutrophils, a type of white blood cell.

Innovation Place Director of Marketing Jackie Presnell said in a news release, “Many of the enterprises at Innovation Place are built on ideas that began at the university, and many of the highly qualified people that work here are U of S grads.”

The winner of the Innovation Award will be announced at the “Celebrate Success” dinner on May 15 in Saskatoon.

For more information, contact:
Doug Gill, Managing Director
Industry Liaison Officer
Phone: (306)966-7335
E-mail: Doug.Gill@usask.ca
Website: www.usask.ca/research/ilo