University-industry research partnerships

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University of Alberta | Agri-food and Agriculture

Key facilities

  • Agri-Food Discovery Place: Research, training & tech transfer for food safety, product value-added processing and bio-refining.
  • Rangeland Research Institute: Research & teaching in grassland ecology, grazing systems, wildlife management, cow-calf management, carbon capture/storage, climate change impacts, land reclamation, water management etc.
  • Livestock Gentec: Genomics, genetics and bioinformatics research. Partners with universities, livestock industry associations, government agencies, & private sector companies worldwide.
  • Human Nutrition Lab: The Whole Body Calorimetry Unit is most precise way of study energy metabolism. Unit is 1 of only 2 in Canada & 1 of <20 in the world.
  • Kinsella Research Station: Beef cattle breeding facility, supports bovine genomic research, and precision ranching research.

Innovations or spin-offs

  • PGX technology: dries liquid plant ingredients to powder; not possible before without degrading health-promoting ingredients. Licensed by UAlberta spinoff Ceapro whose clients include: Jergens, Aveeno, Dove, Coppertone, Burts Bees, Neutrogena. PGX will enable Ceapro to expand into nutraceuticals & functional foods.
  • VaxAlta Inc. Effective, sugar-based, affordable, easy to use vaccines that eliminates antibiotics, improves animal quality of life enabling better, safer food.
  • Delta Genomics: genomics services that will help improve profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of Canadian livestock industry.
  • Forge Hydrocarbons: converts animal fat/feedstock waste into biofuel interchangeable with petroleum fuels. Unlike other biomass fuels, Forge’s have as much energy as crude-oil gas/diesel.

Researchers

  • Agriculture, food production, agribusiness: bio-tech/ bio-resources, feedstock bio products, disease/drought resistance, precision agriculture, agriculture tech, land/water use, production, farmland loss, climate change impact/adaptation, finance, land/ water use, consumer behavior, policy & regulation, marketing, agribusiness implications, economics, trade, marketing. Researchers include: Debra Davidson, Henry An, Sven Anders, Xiaoli Fan, Ellen Goddard, Scott Jeffrey, Philippe Marcoul, John Basarab, Sandeep Mohapatra, Feng Qiu, Habib Rahman, James Rude, Brent Swallow, Jonathan Curtis, Graham Plastow, Paul Stothard, Michael Dyck, Carolyn Fitzsimmons, Changxi Li.
  • Human nutrition/health: nutrition & health, disease prevention, nutrition & chronic disease, microbiome. Researchers include: Jens Walter, Catherine Chan, Rhonda Bell, Carla Prado, Catherine Field.
  • Food safety/security & bio-resources: food chemistry/ microbiology, functional foods, carcass/meat science, toxicology, nutraceuticals, sensory & consumer science, urban farming, disease/drought resistant crops, pesticide/ antibiotics, bio-resource technology, food processing technology, innovative food/industrial products, probiotics, bio-products, grain science/technology. Researchers include: Lingyun Chen, Jonathan Curtis, Feral Temelli, Heather Bruce, David Bressler, Jonathan Curtis, Michael Gänzle, Henry An, Lynn McMullen, Wendy Wismer, Dominic Sauvageau, Thava Vasanthan.
  • Animal science: Animal biology, physiology and metabolism, immunology, reproduction, nutrition, and metabolism, animal health and welfare, genomics, genetics, bioinformatics and proteomics. Researchers include: Clover Bench, Heather Bruce, Ben Willing, Graham Plastow, Leluo Guan.
  • Plant science: biosystems, breeding, physiology & genetics, rangeland ecology, crop biotech, agronomy, crop yield & quality, forage production, crop improvement, biosafety of transgenic crops. Researchers include: Habib Rahman, Dean Spaner, Rong-Cai Yang, Gavin Chen, Edward Bork, Linda Hall, Jocelyn Ozga.

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Special programs or equipment

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  • Canada’s 1st public health graduate program in Food Safety.
  • Pilot scale single screw pilot extruder, only one of its kind in Canada; uniquely suited to pet food and animal feed industries.

Partners

  • TerraVerdae bioworks
  • EC Labs
  • Nutrien (formerly Agrium)
  • Ceapro
  • Champion PetFoods
  • Advanced Orthomolecular Research
  • Cargill
  • Viterra
  • DowDuPont Syngenta
  • BASF
  • Monsanto

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