Kansas University and the global agribusiness company Archer Daniels Midland have plans to join together for a three-year, multimillion-dollar project designed to develop new ways to convert crops and biomass into alternative fuels and chemicals.

On Thursday, the Kansas Bioscience Authority Investment Committee recommended to match dollar-for-dollar Archer Daniels Midland’s $1.2 million investment in its partnership with KU. The committee’s recommendations will be forwarded to the entire board.

Also during the meeting, the investment committee supported funding two Kansas University Cancer Center drug research projects to the tune of $500,000 each.

For the past four years, Archer Daniels Midland — an Illinois-based company with five processing plants in Kansas and a technical center in Overland Park — has been working with KU’s Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis.

Along with the KBA’s $1.2 million and Archer Daniel’s $1.2 million investment, KU will make $334,000 worth of in-kind contributions over the three-year life of the project.

One of the goals of the partnership would be to take technology created by the KU center and design new processes so plant material could be converted into the chemical known as 1,4-butanediol, an important product in the application of engineering plastics.

Other focus areas include finding ways to convert vegetable oils and biodiesel into industrial chemicals and discovering new substitutes for the petrochemical Bisphenol-A, a substance that has sparked health concerns in the past few years.

On Thursday, KBA President and CEO Tom Thornton said the project was in the “strike zone” for federal money coming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the U.S. Department of Energy. Kansas is operating at an advantage because it is in the process of forming the Kansas Bioenergy and Biorefining Center of Innovation, which the project would fall under.

“We are investing in a true Kansas strength and are dead center on areas for federal investment,” Thornton said.

The committee also recommended $1 million to help develop two cancer-fighting drugs.

In one project, the KU Cancer Center will work with the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego to develop an anti-cancer agent for breast and prostate cancers. The drug is in the discovery stages.

The other project will provide the first stage of clinical trails in Wichita for a drug that would treat ovarian cancer. The clinical trials would be provided through a partnership among the KU Cancer Center, the Cancer Center of Kansas, the Midwest Cancer Alliance and Via Christi Regional Medical Center.