From working group to global companyThe start

The biologist Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring way back in 1962 in the USA. In it, she warned of the dangers posed by the overuse of synthetic pesticides. While it attracted a huge amount of attention, the actual amount of success it achieved in protecting nature remained low. All the same, in the following decades many young scientists around the world sought biological alternatives to chemical insect control.

In the 1980s, the idea of using insect-pathogenic nematodes (roundworms or eelworms) as biological control agents in plant protection finally gained acceptance. Many universities invested a great deal of effort into seeking ways to produce large quantities of these nematodes, first in Australia and then additionally in the USA and Europe. Through this, a working group at the University of Kiel under the leadership of Dr Ralf-Udo Ehlers succeeded in culturing insect-pathogenic nematodes in a bioreactor.

In the years following that, intensive research was conducted and the new nematode liquid-cultivation technique was further developed. This ultimately led to Prof. Ralf-Udo Ehlers, Dr Arne Peters and Tillmann Frank, who are now the three Managing Directors of the company, founding e-nema GmbH in 1997 to commercialise the results of scientific work and thereby contributing to making plant protection environmentally friendly.

e-nema today

An international team works in the company`s laboratories on continually improving processes and products as well as on developing new ideas and solutions for plant protection, aquaculture and in biocatalysis, the `white` biotechnology. The team at e-nema GmbH is frequently invited to participate in international research and development projects. Through its global collaborations with countless scientific institutes, universities and research companies, e-nema GmbH has now firmly established itself in the cutting-edge biotechnology sector.