By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

PEORIA, Ill. — Agriculture-related projects in Illinois received a $6.27 million boost last week when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) announced funding for several projects through the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Durbin is a member.

Getting the lion’s share of the grant was the Peoria-based Biotechnology Research Development Center (BRDC), which received $3.5 million in funding to facilitate the development of technologies in the areas of livestock productivity, crop yields and veterinary medicine.

“Our focus will be on new business opportunities created in the tri-county (Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford) area by supporting the technology that will form the platform for these businesses,” said BRDC President and CEO J. Grant Brewen, whose 22-year-old company has been responsible for technologies that have contributed to dozens of commercial products, ranging from microbial manufacturing systems to vaccines for livestock.

Brewen said BRDC will utilize the appropriation to build a new portfolio of research projects, including those in conjunction with the University of Illinois and the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, better known as Peoria’s USDA “ag lab.”

“I’ll begin by traveling to the University of Wisconsin in the next couple of weeks, where there is interesting research taking place in insect-resistant plant technology,” he said.

BRDS was founded in 1988 as “a research and development consortium providing the stimulus and the catalyst for interaction between the private sector, the national laboratories and the academic institutions,” according to Brewen. The company continues to nurture many such relationships, including with Peoria-based start-up companies zuChem and iSoy, which produce sugar substitutes and soy-based skin products, respectively.

Since the early 1990s, BRDS has been involved in a partnership with the USDA’s National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, developing a wide variety of animal vaccines for commercial use. In addition, the company develops horse vaccines in partnership with Colorado State University with support from drug-maker Pfizer.

BRDS also is licensed to develop vaccines with a Minnesota-based USDA lab and supports a large project at the USDA’s Eastern Regional Research Center (EERC) studying pennycress qualities.

“We are about to enter into another agreement with EERC, along with the University of Tennessee, to demonstrate the efficacy of the brand new technology for detecting food contaminants, principally bacteria,” Brewen continued. “The technology will also be used in the clinical human laboratory for detecting a variety of diseases, but the primary focus is on food safety.”

Brewen estimated his company would invest between $500,000-$700,000 on the food safety project in the next two years, not small change for a company that became a nonprofit in 2009 after operating as a for-profit business during the previous two decades.

“Even though we’ve been around a long time, there are a whole lot of people who don’t even know about us,” Brewen said, chuckling.

Other ag-related Illinois companies and agencies receiving appropriations from the Senate for projects with the USDA and U.S. Food and Drug Administration include the Department of Natural Resources ($1.13 million for statewide conservation efforts including invasive species control), the Illinois Plant Breeding Center at the University of Illinois ($617,000 for a focused research and doctoral training program in plant breeding for economically important crops) and Lake County ($350,000 to address watershed management issues).

The UoI Center for One Medicine will receive $500,000 for research, education and outreach efforts for training of public health personnel in animal production systems and other facets of public health.