Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Ecogenomics Consortium will in 2010 receive a follow-up grant of € 3 million from NGI for its ECOLINC programme, which together with its partners’ own contribution means a total funding of € 6 million.
The focus of the ECOLINC programme lies on valorisation of the most promising discoveries from the first round of NGI grants. The objective is to pursue both the commercial use of products of soil bacteria and the development of screening methods and applications. The ECOLINC programme swallowtails with the larger, newly allocated FES programme BE-Basic.
The following are ECOLINC’s three product lines:
- "Nature mining" - the exploration and valorisation of the vast, unearthed reserves of products (antibiotics, enzymes) originating from non-propagable soil bacteria.
- "ECO-Diagnostics tests" - the development of swift, inexpensive screening methods with which to establish biodiversity, soil health and the self-restorative capacity of the soil.
- "Ecosystem services" - the development of applications for the ECO-diagnostics tests, such as the swift determination of the impact van pollution, climate change and other stress on soil health and quality.