Harnessing the microbial world for human benefit

As the world population continues to increase, innovation in sustainable, scalable agriculture is needed to feed this growing population. Decreases in the amount of arable land, unpredictable weather patterns due to climate change, and pest populations with growing resistance to conventional crop protection chemistries compound this challenge. The potential of microorganisms, which have evolved over billions of years to fill almost every ecological niche imaginable, represents a vast and largely untapped resource for novel solutions.