Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The young Rothamsted scientists walked away with prizes including £1,000 after impressing judges at the final of Biotechnology YES with their hypothetical business plan for a company called Phytofend and its revolutionary product called SlugFast, a genetically modified Hosta plant proven to be a highly effective means of slug control.

Hosta is naturally attractive to slugs and the SlugFast variety has been transformed to express a novel appetite suppressing protein, the plant attracts slugs and, upon ingestion, causes them to stop feeding.

This year 51 teams of 248 individuals were whittled down to eight in the final through a series of regional heats, where they were able to draw on advice from mentors with experience in enterprise, innovation, patent law and equity investment.

Other prizes scooped by the Rothamsted Research scientists included winning of sponsored places at the BioIndustry Association dinner and the opportunity, provided by UK Trade and Investment, to give a presentation at a prestigious US business plan competition at Rice University in Texas.

Norwich Research Park based Plant Bioscience Limited (PBL) specialises in the development and commercialisation of breakthrough technologies in agbiotech, food and nutrition, microbiology and biotech.

It takes bright ideas from public and private sources worldwide – turning them into patented, scientifically validated and licensable technologies, with 2006 a particularly productive year for the tech transfer experts.

Formed in 1994, PBL is jointly and equally owned by The John Innes Centre, The Sainsbury Laboratory, and the BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council).

This year alone, PBL has won a stream of accolades, including an award of £1.9m from a UK Government commercialisation fund; developed a novel range of non-peat garden composts made completely from recycled, UK-sourced materials; helped two of its spin-outs secure hundreds of thousands in seed capital; built and launched a ‘Model Gut’ instrument that simulates the processes at work in the human stomach during digestion; and teamed up with a manufacturer to commercialise a novel wound dressing material made from pea starch.