The Agriculture Division of DowDuPont announced the grand opening of the Bay Area Innovation Center (BAIC) in California, a newly expanded, state-of-the-art research and development (R&D) facility focused on agricultural biotechnology discovery, enabling technology development and leading-edge informatics.

Consisting of 60,000 sq. ft. of laboratories, 13,000 sq. ft. of greenhouses and 25,000 sq. ft. of office space, the BAIC will be home to more than 100 highly skilled scientists dedicated to furthering innovation in agriculture. More than 100 researchers, academics, elected officials and media attended the grand opening event this week.

“The Bay Area Innovation Center is a testament to the Agriculture Division’s growing commitment to promoting innovation in California and in the agriculture industry,” said James C. Collins Jr., chief operating officer of the Agriculture Division at DowDuPont. “As part of the vibrant ecosystem of visionary companies, universities, start-ups, technology investors and (non-government organizations), the BAIC will drive collaboration among some of the brightest minds within agriculture and beyond for the benefit of our customers and consumers. This is a true reflection of our commitment to bringing ongoing innovation through new breakthrough products as well as our work to support a digitally connected, more sustainable agriculture industry focused on effective use of information and analytics.”

The BAIC is part of a diverse network of Agriculture Division sites in California, including recently acquired Granular in San Francisco, integrated operations and field R&D in Woodland, product characterization in Fresno and crop protection manufacturing in Pittsburg.

The BAIC conducts research on gene discovery, microbiome science, protein engineering, plant transformation and data science and informatics. Its researchers have made significant achievements in a variety of areas, including: discovery of novel insect control leads for above- and below-ground pest control, new soybean transformation systems for commercial event generation, microbiome discovery platform for crop biologicals applications, fully automated assay systems for insect active screening and design/development of new research informatics architecture.