An innovative research alliance is joining scientists from private industry and the public sector to develop options for soybeans and other agricultural crops to be used as raw materials for producing plastics, chemicals, and other industrial products.

Through the Oilseed Engineering Alliance, announced today between The Dow Chemical Company, Dow AgroSciences LLC, Michigan State University, Miami University, Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, researchers are pooling their expertise to improve traits of specific oils and fatty acids in soybeans, canola, sunflower and other crops. Dow Chemical and Dow AgroSciences are committing more than $10 million to the Alliance over a five-year period to hire additional researchers and fund new initiatives.

According to R.M.Gross, vice president and director of research and development for The Dow
Chemical Company, the Alliance's research can potentially make plant-based oils a workable choice for raw materials used to make useful, everyday products. "Substituting raw materials based on crop- based oils for those based on fossil fuels would mean not only more sustainable alternative materials for manufacturing, but also better environmental profiles for some industrial processes. The research may also enhance the nutritional content of the oils and uncover additional, innovative uses for them,'' Gross says.

The Alliance makes a team effort out of long-standing individual research programs. According to
John Ohlrogge and Mike Pollard, professors of botany and plant pathology at Michigan State -- the project's coordinating university -- the key to the research is the idea that plants can easily perform chemistry that is difficult for chemists with traditional processes. The research will aim to coax plants to produce more fatty acids and oils that are more stable and better suited to manufacturing needs. It could also make the oils easier to extract, reducing the cost of plant oils as compared to petroleum-based products. It's a matter of combining nature's effectiveness with technology's efficiency to encourage sustainability.

"We wanted to get the best available people in the world to tackle these areas,'' Ohlrogge says.
"Only by gathering these people to work together would we have the critical mass needed to make things happen.''

Each individual researcher involved with the Oilseed Engineering Alliance brings specific expertise and skills to the project. Dow Chemical and Dow AgroSciences add a better understanding of
marketplace needs and expertise in processing and commercialization to bring about competitively priced products based on renewable resources.

"This research alliance represents a commitment by Dow Chemical, Dow AgroSciences, and
Alliance members to achieve breakthrough thinking in the field of plant-derived oils,'' says David
Rowe, global business leader of Value-Added Grains for Dow AgroSciences. "We are looking for a new horizon of possibilities where plant-derived oils deliver new solutions to important problems in nutrition, health care and material science.'' 

Company news release
N2578