Why do so many life sciences companies call North Carolina home?

After his 30-plus years of work in agricultural technology, one thing is crystal clear to Kevin Helash.

“No matter where I travel in the world, consumers are looking for safe, healthy, affordable food produced with less chemicals,” he said in an interview.

Helash is now well positioned to help meet that demand. He recently became chief executive officer of Biotalys NV, an ag biotech company that is developing safe, effective and environmentally friendly biologicals to protect food crops from pests and diseases.

(Editor Note: This story originally appeared in the NC State News.)

For almost as long as NC State University has existed, sports rivals have teasingly called us Moo U or Cow College, thanks to our strengths in agricultural research and education.

So it’s only right that decades of groundwork at NC State might one day help cattle farmers worldwide better control their livestock’s gut microbiome — a collection of microbes that aid digestion — and cool the climate as a result.

Results from a collaborative project between Tiamat Sciences and BIOMILQ — women-owned biotechnology startups in Research Triangle Park — show the promise of using plant-based proteins to lower the cost of producing food using cultured cells.