Detecting GMO in grain: ‘Bindley has been super-helpful’

Ryan Skaar is a visiting scholar at Purdue and chief operating officer of NanoBio Designs, which is developing an on-site test that grain distributors can use to detect genetically modified organisms in harvested crops. Focusing on the corn and soybean industries, NanoBio aims to end the distributors’ practice of sending grain samples out to a lab and waiting days for a result. “That’s where we’re trying to come in,” Skaar said, “to provide a DNA testing solution that’s on-site and cost-effective and really, really fast.” 

Skaar said sequences for genetically modified grain have already been identified, and “we developed nanoparticles with probes that are attached to the particles that are specifically programmed or designed to match up with the target sequence.”  

Skaar works out of lab space at Bindley. “We were able to take some money and bring it to the Bindley Bioscience Center and create ourselves as a Purdue-affiliated company. Bindley was super-welcoming. … Along with that, we were a recipient of the Purdue Foundry’s accelerator award, which is a $100,000 investment in our company.”  

Bindley is especially valuable for small start-ups, Skaar said. “I don’t have a huge research team around me to ask questions if I’m struggling with something or need a different perspective,” he said. “I don’t have the funding necessary to go out and buy $100,000 pieces of equipment. But Bindley already has that. They have great lab resources. They’ve got multiple core facilities in flow cytometry and genomics and these types of things.” 

Skaar is impressed by Bindley’s expertise and “open arms” attitude. “Whether you were invented in Purdue or invented outside, they just want great things to happen in that building, and they want things to happen smoothly and people to work together. They do a great job of fostering that.”