Contact person
Niels Bjerg Jensen
+45 60148032
nbje@dtu.dk
The Smarter Agrobiological Screening Project
About
The Smarter Agrobiological Screening (SABS) project is a collaborative research initiative between the Danish Technical University and agricultural science company; FMC. The project aims to screen a DTU-based fungal and bacterial strain collection consisting of over 40,000 strains, to identify novel chemicals effective against economically relevant agriculture pathogens. The DTU project team comprises specialized researchers in environmental microbiology, robotics, data science, and natural chemistry and has a high focus on robotics, automation, and machine learning. Our FMC collaborators contribute knowledge of plant protection, testing in greenhouses and fields, and experience with scaling up and formulating biological plant protection products. The biofungicides identified and verified as potential commercial lead strains will be further developed and finally commercialized by FMC. Additionally the aim is to commercialize the DTU screening platform to a stand-alone company, which will offer screening services to other companies to find valuable microorganisms in agriculture as well as other industries.
Exploring fungi has great potential, and perhaps we can find substances that can be used for disease control in agriculture.
Focus areas
AI-capacity
In-lab biological data and plant and field trial data will be leveraged to train an AI loop, allowing for AI-selected strains that reduce in-lab testing. The project is projected to develop a trained algorithm to enable AI-assisted strain selection and achieve the best strains for the job while reducing redundant in-vitro testing.
New products
The project is well underway in discovering novel chemicals capable of safeguarding wheat crops from phytopathogens. Promising strains are being run across field trials from 2023-2024 seasons.
Screening platform
A state-of-the-art semi-automated screening platform has been developed at DTU and can be used to perform antibiosis tests against fungal pathogens, single-gene sequencing for taxonomic identification, as well as metabolomics extraction for biosafety assessment; all in high-throughput 96-well formats.
Leadership
Jens Christian Frisvad Professor jcf@bio.dtu.dk
Rasmus John Normand Frandsen Associate Professor rasf@bio.dtu.dk
Lars Jelsbak Professor lj@bio.dtu.dk
Ling Ding Associate Professor lidi@dtu.dk
Jakob Blæsbjerg Hoof Associate Professor jblni@dtu.dk
Marjan Mansourvar Assistant Professor marjma@dtu.dk
Niels Bjerg Jensen Guest Project leader nbje@dtu.dk
Team Members
Vilhelm Krarup Møller, vikmol@dtu.dk
Søren Dalsgård Petersen, sorpet@dtu.dk
Rune Juul Brunshøj, rujubr@dtu.dk
David Llorente Corcoles, dalcor@dtu.dk
Johan Vormsborg Christiansen, jovoc@dtu.dk
Alexander Riff Brems, alebrem@dtu.dk
Steen Smidy Brewer, s182833@student.dtu.dk
Alumni Team Members
Sabrina Marie Pittroff
Wiebke Marina Findeisen
Vincent Wiebach
Jonathan Funk
ÁKOS T. KOVÁCS
Mathilde Nordgaard Christensen
Troels Bagge Angelo
Jannik Faliu
Wiebke Marina Findeisen
Vincent Wiebach
Jonathan Funk
ÁKOS T. KOVÁCS
Mathilde Nordgaard Christensen
Troels Bagge Angelo
Jannik Faliu
Collaborators
Funding
