PRESS RELEASE
August 25, 1997
NASA sponsors Aeroponics International's Plant Disease Control Experiment on Russian Mir Space Station

Berthoud, CO

Aeroponics International of Colorado, a leading edge agri-biotechnology company, announced today that their pathogen bio-control system is to be included in a group of NASA sponsored experiments on the Russian Mir Space Station. Astronaut, David Wolf will be hand carrying Aeroponics International's experiment aboard the MIR on Sunday, August 28th.  This is the first experiment of its kind to be carried out in space.

The plant pathogen bio-control experiments will be designed and managed in collaboration with BioServe Space Technologies, a NASA sponsored Center for Space Commercialization located at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  Aeroponics International's life science experiments will study the company's patented organic disease control (ODC) delivery system.  According to Dr. Ken Knutson, VP Product Development, the study will look at  low-gravity effects on the company's ODC delivery system for crop disease control.  Knutson says the study will help the company perfect its delivery system for a variety of  crops including potatoes, wheat, barley, tomatoes, rice and soybeans.  The ODC technology activates the plant’s natural immune system to control diseases. The company's plant disease control approach is revolutionary and does not rely on traditional pesticides.

Mike Sportiello, a Sr. Research Assistant with BioServe, says the experiments are an important part of NASA’s search for viable strategies to grow food plants on long term space flights or on future bases on other planets or moons.  He notes that Aeroponics International's ODC delivery system offers a unique means to control crop pathogens in space by using a natural, pesticide-free matrix to stimulate the plant's own defenses against fungal infection.  Sportiello adds that Bioserve is planning, as part of their collaboration with Aeroponics International, several additional future experiments utilizing Aeroponics International's patented Aeroponic technologies.

Dr. Jim Linden, Professor, Department of Microbiology, Colorado State University and co-inventor of  the ODC delivery system, says that previous approaches by other researchers to stimulate the plant's immune system have fallen short of sustainable results. He adds that Aeroponics International's use of a continuous ODC delivery system stimulates the plant to ward off diseases during its entire life cycle.

Aeroponics International's president and founder, Richard Stoner, states that this collaboration with NASA is a milestone for the company.  He says that attracting the interest of NASA reflects well on the company's technologies and research efforts and bodes well for Aeroponics International's commercial impact in Colorado and other major crop producing regions.  Farmers, and the American populace in general, are becoming more environmentally conscious and are demanding pathogen control strategies that are ecologically benign.  Stoner says the experiment is being conducted on adzuki beans, a high protein Asian food crop.

Aeroponics International, can be reached by phone or fax at (970) 532-3554; contact Dr. Ken Knutson or Richard Stoner via e-mail at sales@aeroponics.com; the company's web site http://www.Aeroponics.com, will have continuing MIR/pathogen experiment updates during the space mission.
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BioServe Space Technologies, a NASA sponsored Center for Space Commercialization located at the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO.    (303) 492-1005

Dr. Jim Linden, Professor Chemical Engineering and Microbiology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO    (970) 491-6122

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