West Lafayette startup lands Bayer award for crop protection research
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
West Lafayette-based Akanocure Pharmaceuticals Inc. is one of 18 recipients of the Grants4Ag Award from Germany-based biotechnology firm Bayer.
The Purdue University-affiliated startup says it will use the award to support research and development of compounds to help fight fungal infections in crops.
The Grants4Ag Award is an annual initiative that provides funding and expertise to researchers developing novel agricultural solutions, Purdue said in a news release. This year’s awards are specifically focused on technologies for the next generation of crop-protection solutions.
Akanocure Pharmaceuticals, based out of the Purdue Research Park, was co-founded by Purdue alumni Mohammad Noshi and Sherine Abdelmawla.
The company is developing antifungal compounds based on technology that Purdue says addresses challenges often faced in development by fine tuning the compounds’ physical and chemical properties for higher efficacy and safety for the environment and human consumption.
Noshi said fungal infections among crops are incredibly pervasive, noting that the amount of crops lost due to such infections is enough to feed nearly 9% of the global population.
“Crop loss due to fungal infection will continue to rise and become more complicated,” Noshi said. “Current fungal pathogens will mutate and develop a higher resistance to current antifungal agents. A new generation of antifungal candidates to address these global crop problems must be developed.”
He said the company’s compounds are meant to target a broad spectrum of fungi species that affect different varieties of crops.
A specific dollar amount for the funding provided by the Bayer award was not provided. The award also includes mentoring and biological testing resources to help with research and development.
“Senior Bayer representatives told us that the Grants4Ag application process was extremely competitive. More than 90 proposals were received and only 18 received support. We feel very excited and honored to be one of these few recipients,” Noshi said. “The project itself is very exciting for Akanocure, and the opportunity to work with Bayer on our research is a humbling achievement.”
In addition to its crop-protection research, Akanocure is developing chemical building blocks that could potentially be used to make drugs for people with hard-to-treat cancers.
In 2020, the company received a $750,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation for its cancer research.