Harry Hart understands that traditional crops, corn and tobacco, can no longer sustain his family farm. In fields that once lay fallow in the winter, Hart now cultivates the cool-weather canola plant, whose seeds are rich in oil. In his own backyard, Hart extracts the oil and mixes it with methanol and a catalyst in 50-gallon drums to produce a clean-burning biodiesel fuel that runs his tractors. As a result, Hart no longer bristles at the wildly vacillating prices at the gas pump in his rural southeastern town of Bolton, NC.

Beyond Hart's use of canola oil, a range of new industries in North Carolina comes from the state's land or sea. In the mountains, natural fauna promise anticancer properties. At the coast, marine biologists use algal compounds to treat cystic fibrosis. In the Piedmont region, manufacturers use biodegradable enzymes to achieve the stone-washed look in jeans - a replacement for pumice stone that creates undesirable byproducts. In the East and Southeast, hog farmers seek ways to convert hog waste into crude oil for fueling cars.

Harry Hart

COURTESY BILL BURKE

In addition to the growing biological opportunities in agricultural and natural products, North Carolina also hosts many traditional industries in the life sciences, especially pharmaceutical companies. The state's pharmaceutical industry ranges from research and development to biomanufacturing. According to a Brookings Institute profile of North Carolina: "A list of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the Research Triangle Park area today reads like a Who's Who of the industry: Aventis, BASF, Bayer, Biogen, and the like."

In North Carolina, and around the world, Glaxo-SmithKline (GSK) is one of the companies that comes to mind when thinking of Big Pharma. Their link with North Carolina go back to the Burroughs Wellcome & Company era, which opened a research facility in Research Triangle Park (RTP) in 1971. Glaxo started a facility in RTP in 1983. In 1995, Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome merged into Glaxo Wellcome. The latest morphing of GSK emerged in January 2000, when Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham joined forces as GSK. At that time, it made the combined company worth more than $175 million, including research and development facilities in RTP and a biomanufacturing plant in Zebulon, NC.

Harry Hart's farm where he uses homegrown canola to fuel his equipment.

COURTESY OF JOAN ARMSTRONG

Among the scientists who have worked for the company is Gertrude Elion, 1988 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine. At Burroughs Wellcome, Elion sought new cancer-fighting compounds, some of which are continuing to be developed long after her death in 1999. Elion worked on many other drugs, including an antibiotic, an antimalarial, and a drug that suppresses the immune system after organ transplants. Even after her retirement, Elion worked on Retrovir (zidovudine), better known as AZT (azidothymidine), used in AIDS treatment. In October 2005, the Food & Drug Administration approved GSK's Arranon (nelarabine) for adults and children with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma.

Today's GSK scientists at RTP are researching drugs for a wide range of conditions, including aging, depression, diabetes, hepatitis C, obesity, and more. Along the way, GSK researchers also look for cleaner and safer ways to make drugs. According to the company's corporate responsibility report in 2005, GSK's R&D site at Research Triangle Park, is researching a new drug for the treatment of type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The site has developed a new manufacturing process for the drug that reduces waste and solvent use, and eliminates the use of other harmful substances. In addition, former GSK employees are sprinkled all over the state (see GSK: An Executive Incubator").

Burroughs Wellcome scientists George Hitchings, left, and Gertrude Elion, right, are shown in this 1988 photo after they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work showing it was possible to tailor drugs to fight bacteria, cancer and other ailments rather than using the previous trial-and-error process.

AP PHOTO/ BURROUGHS WELLCOME

Pharma investment in North Carolina goes beyond research and development, with biomanufacturing playing a growing role. In RTP, for instance, Biogen Idec makes Avonex, a drug for multiple sclerosis, and Amevive for psoriasis. Merck is building a manufacturing plant in Durham that is expected to be churning out vaccines by 2009. This could make North Carolina a crucial link in the vaccine market, because Wyeth already runs one of the largest vaccine facilities in the world, housed in Sanford.

Merck selected a 262-acre site north of Durham in the Treyburn Corporate Park. There, a 272,000 square foot plant will manufacture several vaccines: one for chicken pox, another for measles, mumps, and rubella, and Zostavax, Merck's latest vaccine for shingles. This facility will eventually make more than two-thirds of Merck's live-virus stock for vaccines. Using an automatic viral-distribution system, Merck's plant will handle more than 100,000 doses of product per day. This all arises from an investment of $300 million that will eventually employ more than 300 workers. According to Merck's Web site, the site was chosen because of the tax and economic incentives offered at state and county level to Merck and the concentration of quality scientific and technical personnel living in the Research Triangle area. Other companies often tout the scenic and rural settings as perks of working for them in North Carolina.

Many North Carolina towns do just as well in hooking biomanufacturers. In Franklinton, just northeast of Raleigh, Novozymes (headquartered in Denmark) runs the largest multipurpose enzyme-manufacturing plant in the country. Among many products, Novozymes works on new approaches to biofuels. In 2006, Novozymes received the first North Carolina Biotechnology Center Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Award. In part, the award recognized the company's work on enzymatic techniques that improve the economics of making ethanol from cellulose. According to Ken Tindall, the Biotechnology Center's senior vice president of science and business development: "In just five years, [Novozymes] has managed a 30-fold decrease in the cost of enzymes needed for production of ethanol from cellulose biomass such as corn stover. This is already a major contribution to the nation's growing biofuel production activity."

As farmer Hart already demonstrated, though, biomanufacturing does not require gigantic corporate backing. Beyond growing canola for fuel, corn can be fermented to produce polylactic acid, which in turn can be used to make biodegradable plastics for packaging goods. Moreover, environmentally friendly enzymes can create biofuels, acids, alcohols, and numerous renewable products that required petroleum in the past. Gywn Riddick, regional director of the Biotechnology Center's Piedmont Triad office, says "Companies have to see economic sense in using this new technology. That will be the real determining factor in how and what products companies ultimately manufacture."

Although pharmaceutical discovery and manufacturing appears to be replacing much of North Carolina's traditionally agricultural economy, farming and crop science remain powerful elements of advancing technology in this state. As another example of a high-tech farmer, Darren Armstrong of Beaufort County sends off his soil samples to North Carolina State University for analysis, then programs the results of each sample into his tractor's GPS system. When the tractor makes its trek across the fields, its sprayers dispense fertilizer and herbicide only where it is needed.

Widespread use of GPS farming reduces harmful nitrogen run-off into streams and rivers by 50%. The new system is just plain cheaper, as well. Armstrong says that his farm is more profitable than it was two years ago, because he uses fewer farmhands, fewer supplies, and less-heavy equipment. "At harvest time," he says, "the system records your yield in terms of bushels per acre. After harvesting, you can overlay your yield maps and your soil samples. The two should correspond. If not, you might have a nitrogen deficiency, a pH imbalance, or the wrong levels of micronutrients, such as zinc and copper. You can correct one spot without spraying your entire field."

Agricultural advances in the state also attract industrial interest. Beaufort County, for example, will soon host a $150 million ethanol plant - the first on the East Coast - that will produce 114 million gallons of ethanol per year from biomass. As a result, industry in North Carolina could build from old roots and sprout new ones at the same time.

Correction (posted 5/31/2007): When originally posted, the byline on this article was incorrect. The Scientist regrets the error.