We served as the project leader for a biotechnology capacity building and knowledge transfer initiative funded by the Danish and Netherlands governments. Our role was to design the project, manage inter-governmental relations, contract and manage researchers and institutes in six countries, and lead both the research agenda and transition to commercialization in Vietnam.
The local project team identified promising plant varieties and co-culture cultivation techniques, and then adapted and exceeded biomass fractionation and isolation methods in use at the USDA Agricultural Research Service. We designed, built, and operated in the Mekong Delta a mobile bio-refinery prototype that converted locally grown biomass into various commercial products. We worked closely with farmers and their families to understand how best to integrate a new industry into their communities.