Agricultural Research Service Western Regional Research Center Research for a Growing World (2005, 11 min. 25 sec.) Narrator Scientists at the Western Regional Research Center conduct leading edge research to help meet the present and the future needs of consumers, growers and processors. Innovations from our laboratories, greenhouses and field research sites enhance both food and non-food uses of traditional and new crops. Our experiments yield new strategies to help agriculture work in harmony with the environment. Our research ensures that our food is healthful and safe to eat. Situated in Albany, California the center is one of five regional research centers operated by the Agricultural Research Service or ARS. ARS is the principal research agency of the US Department of Agriculture. James N. Seiber, Director, WRRC What the centers can bring to the table for ARS is teams of people and also the kinds of firepower that you need to do big science nowadays--the genetic sequencing machines, the proteomics, the mass spectrometers and things that really are way beyond the budgets of smaller locations--and we're not only able to purchase them but we can put them to full time use because we have groups that can make use of that. Narrator We're expanding the array of wholesome foods available to consumers. New and appetizing products made from fruits and vegetables, for example, may tempt more of us to eat the recommended portions of vegetables every day. Purees from pears and other fruits are key ingredients in new all fruit bars developed here. These tasty, healthful bars should appeal to a wide range of folks. Dr. Tara H. McHugh, Research Leader Most of my direct research has focused on new processing technologies to increase utilization and consumption of fruits and vegetables. In our country we have a real problem, less than 10% of consumers or American eat their five a day recommended daily allowances of fruits and vegetables and so what we try to do is process those foods in to convenient forms that both children and adults will be more likely to consume. When we develop these type of products we are looking for foods that are 100% fruit or vegetable final products that contain high levels of fruits and vegetables and one example that we were involved in is a forming technology that we use to form a 100% fruit bar. This is a technology, a processing technology, that we patented here and then we licensed that technology to our cooperator, H.R. Mountain Sun, and they also worked with us through a cooperative research and development agreement whereby we were able to work with them to scale up the process to actually manufacture this product and it is on the market now. Narrator The research here explores industrial products from agriculture including light weight concrete fortified with wheat starch, oils for lubricants or other uses from castor beans, and latex from guayule, a dessert shrub native to the American Southwest. When they are ready for market, these new products and the processes for making them will decrease America's reliance on imports and nonrenewable resources. The guayule latex, for example, may provide a safe, natural, hypoallergenic alternative for people who have developed life threatening allergies to latex made from imported rubber. This allergy may cause a severe reaction to the latex used in such products as a child's birthday balloon or a physician's surgical gloves. Dr. Katrina Cornish, Former Research Plant Physiologist The most satisfactory achievement from this project has got to be the discovery and development and commercialization of hypoallergenic guayule latex. This will both insulate the United States from short falls because of either crop failure or political issues with tropical rubber and its an essential raw material and because it hypoallergenic with respect to type 1 latex allergy it means that the many people who suffer from this very serious and life threatening allergy can safely use natural rubber products again and safely to go to hospital and have surgery, safely have a baby, this sort of thing. Narrator Scientists here are creating new bioenergy resources that could be used in place of non-renewable natural resources. Our combinatorial genetics research is providing improved enzymes for producing biofuel ethanol from grain. Much of this work is carried out in our industrial style pilot plant where laboratory findings can be readily scaled up to gage their commercial potential. And new techniques invented here to separate wheat into protein concentrates and starch allow new uses of these byproducts for innovative biodegradable packaging. In collaboration with EarthShell Corporation in Santa Barbara, California, scientists here are developing convenient biodegradable products that use wheat starch in place of petroleum based polystyrene. One day soon the carry out container you take home from your local restaurant maybe made of this environmentally friendly wheat starch based material. Because they are biodegradable, these containers will lessen the burden on our nation's already over stuffed landfills. Dr. William J. Orts, Research Leader So if you can use a renewable in place of an original petroleum product, you've helped the farmer and we've reduced our dependency on foreign oil. So we work with a company that makes hamburger clam shells, burger boxes so to speak, and we making them, instead of making them out of polystyrene, we make them out of renewable starch, excess starch and fibers, renewable fibers. Dr. Gregory M. Glenn, Research Plant Physiologist Initially we wanted to find a replacement for polystyrene foam containers, now we are working with a company that has developed a technology that will do that and with our advances in wheat starch and using wheat starch in this process it looks as though its going to actually make it to market and be able to compete and replace polystyrene. Narrator Other research is also helping our environment as well as growers and ranchers. With ARS colleagues in Europe we've begun building teams of imported beneficial insects to stop the spread of invasive weeds in the western US. These helpful insects attack not just weeds such as yellow star thistle, salt cedar and hydrilla and offer a long term environmentally safe alternative to costly herbicides. In addition, we are testing novel approaches for restoring range lands over run with these weeds. We are also inventing new tactics to thwart major corp pests like Mediterranean fruit flies and codling moths. For example, new more powerful lures that we've formulated will trap these insects and disrupt their ability to reproduce before they can cause wide spread damage in fruit orchards. James N. Seiber, Director, WRRC The environmental aspect of our program is very well represented by a couple of areas one is to essentially discover new methods of controlling pests that don't require synthetic chemicals. So we're worried about chemical contamination of the environment and feel there are other alternatives there that will allow us to accomplish the objectives we need in agriculture without relying solely on synthetic chemicals. So that's happened with orchard pests it's also happening with wheat species where we are looking at biocontrol methods for invasive weeds literally throughout the western United States. Narrator We're investigating new methods for keeping pathogens like Campylobacter, E. Coli, Salmonella, and Listeria out of our food. In addition our research is resulting in new methods to reduce or eliminate contamination of foods by other natural microbial toxins such as aflatoxins which can contaminate almonds and other high value nut crops. Dr. Robert E. Mandrell, Research Leader Our first project is the biology and control of human pathogens in produce. Since we are in really one of the great, not only agricultural regions of the world, but also probably the greatest produce growing region in the world we've concentrated a lot of our work on produce. Our second project is to address the more fundamental biology of the pathogens themselves and these are the human pathogens mostly bacterial and things that people would be familiar with are Campylobacter, E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria. And again, anybody that looks at the news has probably heard about these organisms but we're also now getting into some of the important viruses like Norwalk virus. So these are viral organisms very difficult to work with but interestingly they cause more gastrointestinal illness than any of the bacteria but people generally aren't aware of them because they are very hard to work with. But we are becoming more aware of these and recognize that we really have to learn more about them in terms of food safety. So we are actually here developing some better methods to be able identify these Norwalk virus types so that we can then do studies of incidence in things like produce and irrigation water and other environments that might actually be a reservoir for these viruses that really haven't been recognized before. James N. Seiber, Director, WRRC Certainly the food safety program has grown markedly here in this center it is roughly 40% of our resources now and it's been prompted by the concern about the pathogenic microorganisms in the food supply, things that cause food borne disease and there's so much consumer concern over that, that has prompted programs here at the center as well as the other centers within the ARS network. Narrator Scientists at the Western Regional Research Center successfully collaborate only with our colleagues in other centers but also with corporate partners. Mr. Daniel R. Swiger, Director and Chief Operating Officer This collaboration has meant a lot for our company simply because it's a great model for a good commercialization and the way to transfer technology from ARS to small business. Mr. Gregory W. Gale, Chief Executive Officer The benefits for our products and our customers from our relationship with ARS has been multi fold and we actually expect it to increase. Dr. Gregory M. Glenn, Research Plant Physiologist I think ARS has developed a unique atmosphere and environment where scientists can come in with a vision of where they see them making an contribution whether its in the more fundamental side or the applied side and ARS gives us that opportunity to utilize what we feel is our best talents and energy in accomplishing the goal of the agency.