Small island inventor inspires big innovation

Anguilla inventor Terry Brady came up with the idea for synthetic bait while walking on Anguilla’s beaches and considering how lobster is caught.  On his now designated research vessel, Bateau Godot, he is using a grant to map and study Anguilla’s waters and to further the use of his synthetic, alternative OrganoBait™ to reduce the consumption of billions of pounds of wild menhaden, anchovies, sardines and other forage fish used in commercial traps worldwide.

Second only to the importance and biomass of plankton, forage fish provide the sole food source for many other fish, mammals, and birds in every region of the world.  Industrial net fishing supplies over 35 million metric tons of forage fish every year for use in agricultural additives; pig and chicken feed; pet food; fish farming (aquaculture); and Omega 3 vitamin supplements. Another 18 million tons of forage fish annually are used to bait crab and lobster pots in the $66 billion dollar crustacean fishing industry.

Brady and his partners at Kepley BioSystems, a startup emerging from the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, and a collaborative graduate program from (UNC & AT) in Greensboro, NC., and their invention have been awarded SBIR Phase I, IB and Phase II National Science Foundation research grants under the US Government agency that sponsors fundamental research.  The company has also been named a Top 500 Startup finalist in the global 2016 Hello Tomorrow Challenge.  Kepley BioSystems ranked in the top ten of Food and Agriculture startups in North and Central America.