Southern Regional Research Center: Developing Tomorrow’s Agricultural Products Today

The Southern Regional Research Center is well known for its contributions to the cotton processing and fabric industries, inventing the all-cotton durable press fabric. However, many other contributions have been made the cotton industry over the years in the area of microbiology, biotechnology, and genetics. These include cotton fabric treatment to protect from mildew and algal attack, antimicrobial and protease-inhibiting cottons for wound dressing, enzymatic bio-processing of cotton, genetic marker identification to aid in cotton breeding, isolation and purification of anti-cancer agents from cotton plants, and understanding and controlling mold-causing aflatoxin and bacterial endotoxin in cotton.

Large contributions have also been made in the understanding, detection, and control of bacterial degradation of sugar in harvesting and processing of sugar cane, the understanding and detection of algal-dependent off-flavor in catfish, creating a better animal feed supplement (phytase) through molecular techniques, understanding and detecting allergens in peanuts and tree nuts, and understanding and control of mold-causing aflatoxin in peanuts, corn and other crops.