Packaging materials or coatings for foods that indicate spoilage or protect foods from spoilage.

• Technical Achievement: Engineer ethylene absorbing microbial coatings that can be applied to a broad variety of foods.¹Awalgaonkar, G., Beaudry, R., & Almenar, E. (2020). Ethylene‐removing packaging: basis for development and latest advances. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 19(6), 3980-4007. View Publication
• Technical Achievement: Engineer materials with inherent sensing capabilities that recognize and indicate the presence of pathogens or spoilage metabolites, such as chemically-triggered coatings that release anti-bacterial agents or sentinel microbes.
• Technical Achievement: Create packaging that incorporates engineered pathogen predators, including bacteriophages an predatory bacteria (i.e. BALOs), that prey on microbes that drive spoilage.²Youdkes, D., Helman, Y., Burdman, S., Matan, O., & Jurkevitch, E. (2020). Potential control of potato soft rot disease by the obligate predators Bdellovibrio and like organisms. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 86(6), e02543-19.View Publication
• Technical Achievement: Engineer materials that produce optical mass read-out signals (such as by changing surface absorption or reflectivity).

Materials for crop pest control.

• Technical Achievement: Engineer biodegradable crop-coating materials with pest-deterrent biological components, such as pheromones or baculoviruses.³The Science. Provivi. View Site. (Accessed January 8, 2021.)
• Technical Achievement: Engineer tree, plant, or soil coatings or coverings that can sense and respond to pest presence with mass read-out capability, such as changes in IR reflectivity, to be detected by drone or satellite.

Degradable weed control/suppression cover materials.

• Technical Achievement: Engineer biodegradable hydrogels that incorporate herbicides or microbial sentinels that inhibit growth of undesirable plants.
• Technical Achievement: Engineer derivatized polysaccharide sprayable polymer coatings that inhibit early stage biofilm formation.

Materials that retain water, protect from extreme weather, or provide nutrients and/or soil amendments in the field.

• Technical Achievement: Seed-coating polymers that can be applied prior to planting to protect and enhance growth of emerging seedlings.
• Technical Achievement: Engineer materials/capsules that release cargo in response to analyte (such as pathogen or fertilizer) detection.
• Technical Achievement: Engineer materials that incorporate aquaporins to release water or ion channels to remove excess salt.⁴Medford, J., Morey, K., Kassaw, T., & Antunes, M. Synthetic desalination genetic circuit in plants. Patent application 16/492584, February 13, 2020.
• Technical Achievement: Engineer biodegradable coatings that alter freezing point (such as incorporating antifreeze proteins) or prevent evaporation in response to weather change.

Reduce demand for nitrogen fertilizers and ammonia synthesis.

• Technical Achievement: Establish materials to support engineered rhizosphere microbiomes to enhance the rate of localized N₂ fixation.
• Technical Achievement: Develop materials for delivering microbial cultures (such as algae and cyanobacteria) to serve as agricultural fertilizers.

Footnotes

1. Awalgaonkar, G., Beaudry, R., & Almenar, E. (2020). Ethylene‐removing packaging: basis for development and latest advances. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 19(6), 3980-4007. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12636
2. Youdkes, D., Helman, Y., Burdman, S., Matan, O., & Jurkevitch, E. (2020). Potential control of potato soft rot disease by the obligate predators Bdellovibrio and like organisms. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 86(6), e02543-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02543-19
3. The Science. Provivi. https://provivi.com/en/the-science. (Accessed January 8, 2021.)
4. Medford, J., Morey, K., Kassaw, T., & Antunes, M. Synthetic desalination genetic circuit in plants. Patent application 16/492584, February 13, 2020.