The American Chemical Society (ACS) will honor researchers and companies as Heroes of Chemistry for creating and enhancing products that have led to significant advancements in sustainability and improvements in health care. The ceremony to honor these achievements will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 25, in Chicago, IL, during ACS Fall 2026.

“The 2026 Heroes of Chemistry truly embrace the ACS commitment of improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry,” says ACS President Rigoberto Hernandez. “These companies are advancing innovations that strengthen human health, support global food systems and enable more sustainable technologies. Their work demonstrates how chemistry can solve some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.”

Scientific teams in industry are being honored for the following achievements:

Novartis: Scemblix® (asciminib) is a novel therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia that works by restoring a key protein to its inactive state.

Corteva: Pyraxalt™ active (triflumezopyrim) provides rapid, long lasting control of rice planthoppers through a novel mode of action that stops pests from feeding and controls resistant populations. Its selectivity and single application effectiveness helps protect yields, supports sustainable farming and strengthens food security for rice growing communities across Asia.

Qnity Electronics: Recognized for a breakthrough in non fluorine photoresists for semiconductor manufacturing. This innovation supports the industry’s shift away from PFAS, advancing sustainability while meeting the precision needs of modern chip production. First commercialized with the launch of UV™ 26GNF photoresist, Qnity has expanded this technology across a range of products used in semiconductor lithography.

Gilead Sciences: Veklury® (remdesivir) is an antiviral that demonstrates broad spectrum activity against multiple pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, SARS, Marburg and MERS in vitro. Rapidly developed and scaled, it became the first FDA approved COVID-19 treatment, with clinical trials showing that it reduced recovery time and disease progression risk during the global pandemic.

The 2026 winners will be inducted into the Heroes of Chemistry scientific hall of fame, which ACS has sponsored annually since 1996.

Special thanks to the ACS Board Committee on Corporation Associates, which evaluated the applications and selected the winners.

Transaction adds CRISPR-based precision microbiome technology and BiomElix® One, a poultry feed additive approved in Brazil

 BiomEdit, a pioneering animal health biotechnology company, announced it has acquired Folium Science’s technology platform and pipeline assets, including BiomElix® One, a poultry feed additive approved in Brazil. The transaction adds both an approved product asset and a complementary CRISPR-based microbiome technology to BiomEdit’s existing capabilities and broadens the company’s pipeline across animal health and nutrition.

BiomEdit is pioneering a new class of genetically engineered bacterial biologics called Programmable Veterinary Biologics™, designed to perform targeted biological functions in animals. This acquisition adds Folium’s Guided Biotics® CRISPR-Cas technology, a complementary approach designed to selectively target specific bacterial populations within the microbiome while preserving the broader microbial community.

“Folium assembled an exceptional scientific team and built a differentiated platform that complements BiomEdit’s existing technology,” said Aaron Schacht, CEO of BiomEdit. “One approach engineers beneficial bacteria to perform targeted biological functions; the other selectively targets specific bacterial populations within the microbiome. Together, these scientific approaches give us a broader set of tools to address important animal health and production challenges.”

BiomEdit will now have two advanced poultry product programs based on distinct precision microbiome technologies. The company’s lead candidate, BE-101, is being developed for the prevention of mortality associated with necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens and is in the final stages of the conditional licensure process with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Veterinary Biologics (USDA CVB). Folium’s BiomElix® One has received approval from Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA) for use as an animal feed additive.

“I’m proud of what our team built and confident that, in BiomEdit, our science has found the right home: one with the vision, expertise and development capability to realize its full potential for animal health,” said Ed Fuchs, co-founder of Folium Science.

“Ed Fuchs, Martin Woodward and the entire Folium team have built a strong foundation over the past decade,” said Schacht. “By combining these complementary technologies in one platform, we can both engineer beneficial microbes to perform specific biological functions and selectively reshape microbial communities. This broader toolkit expands our ability to design precise, differentiated solutions that improve animal health and productivity.”

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Annual Awards Program Recognizes Innovation in Ag & Food Technologies Around the Globe

Intelinair, an automated crop intelligence company that uses AI and machine learning to help growers and agronomic advisors turn field data into decisions, today announced it has been selected as winner of the “AI-based AgTech Innovation of the Year” award in the 7^th annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by AgTech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global agricultural and food technology markets today.

Every season, a single farm can generate terabytes of data from imagery, soil sensors, yield monitors, weather feeds, and planting records, yet most growers and advisors struggle to turn it into timely decisions. Intelinair built its AGMRI platform to close that gap. AGMRI integrates imagery, soil sampling, real-time weather, planting, and harvest records and field boundaries into a single, continuously updated view of enrolled corn and soybean fields, storing data across many zones per field to capture the within-field variability field-level averages miss.

“Growers and their advisors have never had more data, and yet the hardest part of their job is still turning that data into the right decision at the right time,” said Tim Hassinger, President and CEO of Intelinair. “AGMRI was built to do that synthesis, and the AGMRI AI Agent now lets an advisor simply ask a question and get an answer in seconds that used to take hours of analysis. Being recognized by AgTech Breakthrough is a tremendous honor for the team that made it possible.”

At the core of AGMRI, proprietary machine-learning models analyze multispectral imagery to detect crop stress, disease, nutrient deficiency, drainage issues, and stand problems, often before they are visible to the human eye, then enrich those findings with soil, application, and seed-placement data. The platform’s AGMRI AI Agent, live for the 2026 crop season, opens those capabilities to plain-language questions: it queries the live data directly, accounts for differences in soil and field conditions to keep comparisons fair, and returns formatted reports, dashboards and prescription maps. Analysis that once took two to four hours per grower now takes under a minute, supporting decisions on hybrid placement, seeding rates, fungicide timing, harvest sequencing and field-level profitability.

The AgTech sector is rapidly redefining how food is produced, managed and distributed, transforming one of the world’s most essential industries. From AI-driven crop analytics and precision farming platforms to sustainable agriculture solutions and autonomous equipment, AgTech is delivering greater efficiency, transparency and environmental responsibility.

The mission of the annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program is to recognize the innovators transforming the global agricultural and food production landscape through technology. The program conducts a comprehensive analysis of the companies, technologies, and solutions redefining how crops are grown, livestock is managed, and food is produced and distributed. From precision agriculture platforms and farm management software to AI-driven yield forecasting, IoT-based soil and water sensing, and synthetic biology innovations, these breakthrough innovations are enabling agricultural companies to operate more sustainably, feed a growing global population, and shape the future of how the world grows and produces food.

“The strongest AI entries this year were the ones that put advanced analysis directly in the hands of the people making daily operating decisions, rather than leaving it with data scientists,” said Bryan Vaughn, Managing Director, AgTech Breakthrough. “Intelinair stood out for pairing deep agronomic modeling with an AI agent that turns a grower’s question into a field-level recommendation on the spot. It is a deserving winner of our 2026 AI-based AgTech Innovation of the Year award.”

As its models strengthen with every season of accumulated data, Intelinair is continuing to invest in AGMRI, the AGMRI AI Agent and the grower and ag-retail partnerships behind it.

The future of H-2A farm management is already in Croft employers’ pockets. Croft now connects the AI assistants they and their partners already use directly to their own H-2A data.

Croft, the most-used H-2A platform in the country, today announced the Croft MCP(Model Context Protocol) connector, becoming the first all-in-one H-2A platform to bring AI assistants directly into a customer’s account. Employers, agents, and recruiters can use ChatGPT, Claude, and any MCP-compatible assistant to easily get answers about their H-2A operations, in their own words.

Croft already cuts H-2A admin time by more than 50% while increasing compliance, and the connector takes that further. A customercan ask their assistant a question, like which workers still need a consulate appointment, and get an answer in seconds, pulled straightfrom their own Croft account, no report to build. Common questions include:

• “What should I know right now about the job orders starting in the next 60 days?”
• “Which of my job orders are short on workers right now?”
• “Give me the wage, housing, meal, and transportation terms I need to remember for this job order.”
• “Who is set up to sign ETA-790A documents for this farm?”
• “Which workers may need attention on three-quarters guarantee progress?”
• “Which workers crossed into the U.S. but have not arrived at the worksite?”

“Croft’s job is to make H-2A easier, more affordable, and more compliant for growers and the partners they work with,” said Scott Prince, CEO of Croft. “Our timekeeping and payroll sync have been among our most popular releases, and this connector continues that strategic focus. We are proud to keep building the functionality our customers need to save time and money, increase compliance, and strengthen the economics of their operation.”
“The goal was never just better reporting. It is helping H-2A employers know what to do next,” said Stuart Hinson, COO of Croft. “Nowa customer can ask the way they would ask their best office manager and get calm command of what needs attention, from the details already inside their own account.”
Getting started is free. Each account comes preloaded with the employer’s job orders and a free trial of timekeeping and payroll sync,with the MCP connector included. H-2A employers can request their ready-to-go Croft account at [email protected]

Today, Alloy Partners announced a new partnership with Keystone Cooperative in their One Health Studio, a venture studio creating and scaling companies at the convergence of animal, plant and human health. The partnership strengthens the studio’s growing network of corporate and institutional partners backing the next generation of one health innovation.

Keystone Cooperative, a 100-year-old farmer-owned agriculture and energy business headquartered in Indianapolis, brings direct operational knowledge across agronomy, energy, grain, animal nutrition and swine production, along with deep relationships with over 20,000 farmer-owners across Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. The partnership will help fuel the studio’s pipeline of new ventures targeting shared challenges across human wellness, animal health and food systems.

“Keystone represents exactly the type of partner we built the One Health Studio to attract: an organization with a century of agricultural expertise and direct relationships with the farmers and producers who stand to benefit most from the startups we’re building. Their investment adds real-world operational depth that will make every venture we launch stronger,” says Elliott Parker, CEO of Alloy Partners.

“The challenges facing agriculture, animal health and food systems are increasingly interconnected, and the solutions need to be, also. The One Health Studio gives us a seat at the table where those solutions are being built from the ground up, and we’re bringing the perspective of the farmers and producers who will put them to work,” says Scott Logue, incoming CEO of Keystone Cooperative.

Launched in November 2025 with founding partners Elanco Animal Health and the State of Indiana, the One Health Studio, located in the One Health Innovation District, has already moved eight concepts into incubation. The studio, led by serial founder Ben Lewis, unites research institutions, investors, corporate partners and entrepreneurs to launch new startups based in Indiana.

“The future of these industries is being built right now, and it’s being built by the companies willing to sit at the table with startups and researchers instead of waiting to see what is created without them. That’s why having partners like Keystone and Elanco involved is so important for One Health Studio. They’re not just investors or spectators. They’re shaping what comes next in animal, plant and human health, and they’re doing it alongside the startups and founders building it. The corporations that engage with startups like this will own that future. The ones that wait will be buying it from someone else,” says Ben Lewis, Managing Director of the One Health Studio.

Keystone joins Elanco as a corporate investor and partner in the studio, with Alloy Partners expecting to welcome additional partners in the coming months.