NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Belgian life sciences institute VIB and North Carolina State University announced today that they have formed a strategic alliance in plant biotechnology research.
Under the terms of the arrangement, the institutes will exchange investigators and form research collaborations in the areas of soil microbiomes, plant breeding, systems and synthetic biology, field phenotyping, and precision agriculture. They also intent to form new companies together.
"VIB has an excellent model for developing basic science discoveries that lead to startup companies, while we have a strong model for taking basic research and applying it to agricultural problems," Steve Lommel, associate dean of NC State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said in a statement. "So we see this as a win-win relationship, one that will benefit both VIB and NC State, as well as the agriculture and agbiotech industries."
VIB Managing Director Johan Cardoen added that the collaboration "will open new research paths and will create new opportunities to boost the growth of both agbiotech clusters, which represent world-leading innovation clusters in plant science."