USDA Rural Development recently announced that the Farmers Innovation Fund has been certified as a Rural Business Investment Company. This designation allows Farm Credit System institutions and others to invest as limited partners. The Farmers Innovation Fund, a unique joint initiative of AgLaunch Holdings Inc. and Ag Ventures Alliance, is guided by farmers’ expertise aiming to bring promising technologies to the market faster, reduce the risk of adopting new innovations, strengthen U.S. agriculture supply chains, and create new opportunities for rural businesses, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers.
Celebrating 25 years of success and positive impact on Missouri’s agricultural and human-health bioscience economy, BioSTL held its inaugural Breakthrough 25 gala event at the end of August. The event, attended by more than 600 people, included a special tribute to Bill Danforth, one of the visionaries instrumental in BioSTL’s creation and success. From the organization’s website: “Danforth represents the kind of civic leadership that has helped make the region’s innovation ecosystem possible: a willingness to think decades ahead, bring people together and invest in the institutions that make progress possible.”
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Northwestern University $30 million over five years to establish a new center aimed at uncovering a hidden layer of information within the human genome. Called the Center for Genome Intelligence Engineering (GENIE), the multi-institutional Science and Technology Center (STC) will integrate experts in physics, biology, engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and medicine. GENIE will be situated within Northwestern’s Querrey Simpson Institute for Regenerative Engineering (QSI RENU).