The CRDC-supported ABARES Science and Innovation Award winner for 2023, research scientist Dr Cong Vu and his company NanoSoils Bio, will feature as part of evokeAG in Perth this week.
NanoSoils Bio is a UNSW start-up using nanoparticles to deliver agricultural chemicals directly to plants.
Cong (pictured) has been applying his experience using nanoparticles for cancer treatment to protect Aussie cotton crops from drought. Through his work, Cong aims to maximise the uptake of silica nanoparticles in cotton to help the plants deal with drought stress, an issue that is responsible for 67 per cent of yield losses for cotton lint.
Cong did his PhD in nano-medicine, as part of a world-leading group using nanotechnology to deliver anti-cancer drugs to cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
One afternoon in the lab, he noticed one of the anticancer drugs he was using was related to the banned pesticide DDT.
“It got me thinking—if I am developing nanoparticles to promote drugs to targeted cancer cells in the human body, why can’t I do the same for agrochemicals and reduce the effects of harmful chemicals on our environment,” Cong explains.
“I realised we can expand and translate our technology from medicine to agriculture.”
In 2021, Cong founded NanoSoils Bio. He says the fundamentals of the silica nanoparticle technology are similar to nanomedicine.
“We can control the morphology of the nanoparticle, and by doing that we can control where the nanoparticle can get inside the plant,” Cong says.
“The nanoparticle helps the plant tolerate drought stress.”
Cong says the technology could be used as a seed coating to cover the surface of the cotton seed before it’s sold to farmers. He says nanoparticles could also be added to fertiliser.
Cong grew up in the Mekong Delta - the ‘rice bowl of Vietnam’. While cotton is his first priority, Cong hopes to one day expand the technology to food crops including barley, wheat and rice.
As the recipient of the 2023 award, Cong received a CRDC grant to undertake this novel research. Cong and NanoSoils Bio can be found at Startup Alley at evokeAG 2024.
