April 8, 2024

This paid piece is sponsored by South Dakota Biotech.

The first months of operation for Dakota BioWorx have been productive ones as work scales up at the Research Park at South Dakota State University.

“There’s so much potential in advancing plant-based biotechnology innovations, and Dakota BioWorx has made impressive strides already,” said Joni Ekstrum, executive director of South Dakota Biotech.

“We’re excited to be partnering with them and anticipate some fantastic science happening as a result of the relationships they are building.”

We caught up with Dakota BioWorx CEO Craig Arnold to learn more about the newest facility’s early success and what’s next as it becomes fully operational.

Since you became operational last fall, how would you describe the ramp-up? Are you continuing to install equipment, or is it essentially fully up and running?

Since opening in the fall, we have been generating awareness for our facility and preparing for incoming projects. March was big for us. We conducted our first bio processing test run with South Dakota State University researchers. This represents the first step in the scale-up and commercialization process for bioproducts.

Ananda Nanjundaswamy, associate professor in biotechnology, South Dakota State University

Our new state-of-the-art analytical lab was also used for the first time by SDSU researchers for something called bioproduct characterization. We are still waiting for a few key pieces of equipment, but research projects are underway, and we expect to be fully operational very soon.

Krishnan Veluswamy, PhD, senior research engineer and scientist at South Dakota Mines, CAPE Laboratory, CNAM-Bio

What kind of market response have you seen toward Dakota BioWorx? How does it compare with expectations?

We launched our out-of-state awareness campaign at the end of February and have seen a tremendous response, with 1,400 percent growth in followers on our social platforms and higher than expected engagement with our content. We also launched a new Intern Bootcamp, offering paid, hands-on internships for SDSU and South Dakota Mines students. This has received overwhelming interest as well. What we’re seeing on a bigger scale is incredible potential for Dakota BioWorx to make a profound impact on the South Dakota biotech industry and the local workforce.

There’s early demand for your lab space. Who’s filling that space, and how are they using it?

POET, producer of biofuel and sustainable bioproducts and namesake of the building, and a couple of local startups are occupying three R&D lab spaces as we put the rest of our facility to work helping our innovators scale up and commercialize their ideas.

To further our efforts to promote South Dakota as a player in the new bioeconomy, in addition to our partnership with SDSU, we’ve also formalized strategic partnerships with the CNAM-Bio lab at South Dakota Mines, Synonym from Capacitor.bio, BioMADE, Plant Protein Innovation Center and South Dakota Biotech Association. These partnerships are already expanding opportunities in and out of the state. Our vision is to develop a “border-to-border” approach to statewide bioproducts development by leveraging biotechnology facilities across the state of South Dakota and to form a network of biotech innovators and resources to develop groundbreaking new bioproducts.

Srinivasa Reddy, CEO of FermenteQ, and Krishnan Veluswamy, PhD, senior research engineer and scientist at South Dakota Mines, CAPE Laboratory, CNAM-Bio

With its rich history in agriculture, South Dakota is poised to be a major contributor in plant-based biotech innovation. If we all come together, we can lead the new biotech frontier. But we have to work together.

What more do you see happening in the year ahead? What’s next for Dakota BioWorx? 

In the coming months, we’ll ramp up marketing and partnership efforts in key regions across the United States, and we’ll form more strategic partnerships. We’ll also roll out our proprietary approach to scaling bioresearch for commercialization, which includes three phases in separate, secure labs to help our clients through every scale-up step as they prepare to commercialize their bioproducts.

We are diligently collaborating with SDSU and South Dakota Mines to craft educational curriculum and resources tailored to the advancement of higher education and workforce development, an imperative for fostering a thriving ecosystem in South Dakota. Beyond the mere provision of equipment and infrastructure, the cultivation of a cadre of skilled professionals remains paramount for facilitating groundbreaking research — a pivotal juncture offering significant prospects for our state’s active participation in the burgeoning bioeconomy.

 If companies are interested in learning more about working with Dakota BioWorx, how should they reach you?

We encourage people to reach out to us via our website or our LinkedIn page.