It was a sunny day in Boston when I got to talk with Dr. Andrew Manning, Bioproducts Research Director at POET, and even with sunglasses covering his eyes, his passion and excitement were easily visible. My goal was to get Manning, who was in town for a conference on mycotoxin mitigation, to give me the scoop on the $30 million innovation hub in Brookings, South Dakota, that bears POET’s name.
“What inspires me most,” said Manning, speaking about the collaborations happening at the hub on a daily basis, “is the appetite for doing things together. Across companies, across research groups, across borders.”
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The hub, formally known as the POET Bioproducts Center, is a fully operational, 45,000-square-foot facility located in Research Park at South Dakota State University. Its existence was made possible by significant public and private investment, including a $5 million lead gift from POET, $23 million from the state legislature, and contributions from South Dakota Corn and the Soybean Research and Promotion Council. Overall, the facility represents a shared vision between these entities, as well as South Dakota State University (SDSU) and South Dakota Mines.
The first-of-its-kind innovative ecosystem between students, faculty, and industry partners allows collaboration on the next generation of bioproducts, specializing in two areas: specialty animal feeds (such as prebiotics and probiotics to reduce antibiotic use) and biomaterials (such as degradable bioplastics). Guided by international bioscience experts and supported by South Dakota’s agricultural resources, it is projected to generate over $6 million annually in research spending and $4 million in industry services. It will also provide jobs for highly trained scientists and engineers, as well as administrative, operations, and accounting positions.
Manning was able to give me the lay of the land, but to really understand that vision — and its significance to South Dakota, the agricultural sector, and beyond — I needed to go a level deeper: inside the POET Bioproducts Center, to talk with the founding members of Dakota BioWorx, the non-profit that operates the facility.
A few days later, I was able to do just that, thanks to the wonder of video conferencing. Hosting me, from several thousand miles away, were CEO Craig Arnold and Project Manager Greg Opdahl. Soon after the interview began, we were joined by Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Neal Connors. Behind the three of them, through the glass walls of the meeting room, the shiny metal surface of a 3,000-liter bioreactor was just visible.
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Under Arnold’s belt are already several decades of leadership in technology and innovation. His vision for Dakota BioWorx — and for the Center — is crystal clear.
“Our primary interest is in the commercialization of new, bio-based tech, and our main role within that is to help remove risk from the process. Just because something works on a lab bench doesn’t mean it will work on a commercial scale, and this facility bridges that gap by allowing solutions to go from test tubes to production-scale volumes. Dakota BioWorx is where startups, researchers, and Fortune 500 companies come to test, scale, and launch the next generation of bioproducts.”
Connors, a renowned industrial microbiologist, offered more context to my nascent understanding of the biotech sector.
“As a science,” he pointed out, “biology has, in many ways, gone from discovery-based to design-based. What that means is that we can increasingly take microorganisms and basically rewire them to design new products and solutions. More and more companies are interested in doing that, and biomanufacturing is growing substantially. It’s tied to everything from food availability to national security and economic development, and it’s driving a huge demand for piloting research at a larger scale.”
“Exactly,” Arnold agreed. “Students, entrepreneurs, startups — they can’t get millions of dollars to build a facility just to find out if their innovation will work at scale. In many cases, this de-risking step gets outsourced to companies in other countries, but we want to help provide the opportunity to do it here.”
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By “here,” Arnold means not just the U.S., but the Midwest specifically, and South Dakota in particular. I have to ask, why?
“The perfect example is right there,” Arnold said, pointing across the table to Opdahl.
Opdahl holds a Master’s degree in chemical engineering from Mines. He grew up in South Dakota, was educated in South Dakota, and his family is in South Dakota. Still, historically, he would have been a likely candidate to move out of the state to find work in his chosen field, and he’s far from alone. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 23% of students in South Dakota’s public university system are pursuing bioscience-related degrees. While science and technology jobs in the state are growing faster than jobs in other sectors, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s easier to find those opportunities elsewhere — and that’s what the supporters behind the Bioproducts Center hope to change.
“Our greatest export here isn’t corn. It’s people,” said Arnold. “A core part of our vision is to help develop that workforce and ensure graduates from SDSU and School of Mines don’t have to leave the state to build careers in biotech and advanced agriculture. With every research collaboration, startup pilot, or scale-up project, the Center is building the ecosystem to keep those opportunities and those people right here.”
I wanted to know what this all looked like in practice, and Opdahl filled me in.
“There are three categories of projects we’re working on at the moment. The first is collaboration with university researchers and research groups. We help them figure out if their work has commercial potential, and if so, how to realize it. A step up from that, we work with startups to help them avoid the Valley of Death.”
“Valley of Death,” of course, refers to the phase that many small companies go through after putting substantial effort into commercialization without yet having generated significant revenue. Especially in the fast-moving world of tech innovation, the heat of the valley can be killer.
“The third category,” Opdahl continued, “is projects with large companies, including Fortune 500s. Many of them have their own innovation pipelines and testing facilities, but still come to us for our expertise and resources. In terms of sectors, we see a lot of demand for field and feed applications, but also for food uses and other bio-based products.”
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The part about established industry heavyweights getting help from a tiny nonprofit surprised me, until I remembered something Dr. Andrew Manning explained to me on that sunny day in Boston.
“For POET, there’s a lot of value in the collaboration that public-private partnerships make possible,” he had told me. “The faculty and students that make up South Dakota Mines and SDSU have a wide array of knowledge and biological resources that could open the door to further research and potentially new applications.”
The potential in this area runs deeper than one might think. For instance, explained Manning, learning to modify a single enzyme could unlock the ability to convert forms of waste, like corn fiber, into high-value bioproducts like biodegradable packaging or renewable chemicals, ultimately reducing reliance on petroleum, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and creating entirely new revenue streams for farmers. Of course, all of this is only possible if there’s an opportunity to scale up that research in a facility like the POET Bioproducts Center.
With all that’s going on in the Center — the impressive facilities, the many stakeholders, the various projects — I’m obliged to ask: If everything goes to plan, and Dakota BioWorx fulfills its stated mission, what will it look like?
“This research park we’re in is 100 acres,” said Arnold. “Our big vision is to see companies build and grow right here alongside us, contributing to the evolution of biotechnology and value-add agriculture, and creating jobs for the next generation. Not just scientists and engineers, but technicians, marketers, and everything else that comes with a booming sector — and doing it right here in South Dakota.”
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This optimism feels contagious around the Center. It’s certainly shared by POET, who will ultimately reap the rewards of having a skilled bioproducts workforce in the state. Generating revenue is good business, but in a case like this, generating opportunities is even better.
“We’re proud to invest in the next generation of leaders who are paving the way to the ag-based bioeconomy of the future, starting with the students and staff who will work in this facility,” said POET Founder and CEO Jeff Broin. “Even after nearly four decades in this industry, I believe we have only begun to scratch the surface of what agriculture and bioprocessing can do, and the POET Bioproducts Center will play a vital role as the bright young minds of today use American ingenuity to create a better tomorrow.”
