The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is pleased to announce that industrial biotech luminaries Drs. Doug Cameron and Chris Guske will be judges for Consider Corn Challenge V. Cameron and Guske have been instrumental in discovery, development, scale-up, financing and on-going management of numerous biotech technologies. Their participation as judges brings decades of expertise in identifying and commercializing successful products to the Consider Corn Challenge V winner selection process.
Doug Cameron’s career has spanned all aspects of industrial biotech. He started his career as a Professor at the University of Wisconsin, prior to joining Cargill to build their biotechnology group. From Cargill, he transitioned to investing in biotech, leading investments in this space at Khosla Ventures and Piper Jaffray. He cofounded First Green Partners and was most recently Senior Managing Director of the Asia Green Fund. He currently provides guidance to a number of industrial biotech companies, as a member of their boards. Dr. Cameron has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from M.I.T.
During Chris Guske’s 35-year career, he has been a key contributor in bringing new products to market. Today, these products represent millions of pounds of production and important new markets for corn. Products include commodity chemicals for CP Kelco and Nutrasweet, polymer building blocks 1,3-PDO for DuPont and Tate&Lyle, and 1,4-BDO for Cargill and Helms. In 2017, Chris started D2 Biotech Consulting, which to date has assisted more than 90 companies in development and commercialization of new products. He also provides leadership as a board member/scientific advisor for both industrial biotech companies and investment firms. Dr. Guske has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of Technology.
NCGA Research and New Uses Action Team Chair, Chad Epler shares that “the Consider Corn Challenge has been an important catalyst to focus companies on utilizing corn as a feedstock. Former winners of the Challenge have gone on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and are now commercializing new and diverse products. This is all the result of the NCGA’s Action Team’s mission to create new markets for corn.”
“Having Drs. Cameron and Guske as judges will help ensure that checkoff dollars continue to create benefits for U.S. corn growers.”
This year’s prize pool of $300,000 will be split by no more than three winners. The deadline for submission is June 30. More information can be found at: ncga.com/ConsiderCorn.
