Reduced allergy peanuts and peanut products are one step closer to store shelves now that Alrgn Bio has opened an office at Gateway University Research Park’s South Campus.

“The real message here is we’re open for business,” said Johnny Rodrigues, chief commercialization officer at Xemerge, the Toronto-based technology development that will market the peanut treatment process.

Alrgn (pronounced allergen) Bio is a spin-off company that is a partnership between North Carolina A&T State University and Xemerge, which was originally licensed to market the patented process that reduces allergens in peanuts by at least 98 percent.

“We would like to see this process become the industry standard,” Rodrigues said during a press conference on Oct. 2. “It isn’t anything that will be hard to integrate into industry practice,” he said.

According to Rodrigues, the three-step process to treat the peanuts is simple enough. Using roasted peanuts, for the sake of consistency, the nuts are submerged in boiling water to prepare them to absorb the food-grade enzyme found in things like bread and wine and dried to lock the enzyme into the nuts.

This process was developed by Dr. Jianmei Yu, a food and nutrition researcher in the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and two colleagues who have since moved on to Qatar University.

Rodrigues admits that it may not be a good idea for people with life-threatening injuries to consume the treated peanuts even through it could reduce the risk of severe reactions.

“They may have more subtle indicators of an allergic reaction that could be more like discomfort. Those who experience discomfort as a reaction may not have any symptoms at all,” Rodrigues said.

There is no timeline for when the treated peanut products will be available in stores. The product is still being tested and there are some business details that need to be finalized.

Rodrigues added, “We’re in the process of bringing in experts to determine what makes sense. The purpose of (the press conference) is to show that this is real.”

EPA employees could see a positive difference in pay as early as the October payroll.

UNC General Administration (GA) initially approved the increase for SPA employees and allocated $5 million for pay and benefits increases for all UNC System EPA employees. North Carolina A&T State University’s share was $200,000 total for pay and benefits increases combined.

According to Robert Pompey, vice chancellor for business and finance, that came out to about $160,000 of salary increases for all of our EPA employees.

“The UNC System then provided guidance that allowed the individual institutions to create funds to supplement the increases,” Pompey said.

N.C. A&T allocated about $2.5 million, which allows an overall increase of about 3 percent. From there, the cabinet elected to give a $1,000 increase to all employees across the board with the remainder of the funds to be distributed to departments to create merit and market increases in pay for some deserving EPA employees.

“We’ve not had salary increases for a number of years,” Pompey said. “Even what we’ve added was nowhere near what we need to make (salaries) competitive.”

As of Oct. 3, increases were being finalized with the goal of having the increases, retroactive to July, ready for the October paycheck.

SPA employees who were employed with the university as of June 1, saw their pay increase plus benefits in the September paycheck.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), some university temporary employees are eligible for university subsidized health insurance.

The ACA mandates that business with more than 50 full-time equivalent employees must provide an adequate level of affordable health insurance coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week.

“There are some exclusions to that,” said Linda R. McAbee, vice chancellor for human resources.

Exclusions include part-time employees who work less than 30 hours weekly and seasonal employees who work less than 120 days per calendar year. Students working under federal or state-sponsored work-study programs are also excluded. Students who work on campus in positions that are not considered work-study are also not included.

“Typically students don’t work more than 20 hours per week because that comprises their student status,” McAbee said. “The focus then becomes working instead of school and they are students first.”

Employees who are included consist of non-student temporary employees, post-doctoral students who work on campus, rehired retirees as well as permanent full-time employees who opt out of coverage.

While the mandates seem to be straightforward, they do not address all of the concerns on the university level. That is why UNC General Administration (GA) had to craft stipulations that relate specifically to address those concerns.

“The challenge for higher education is adjunct faculty because they are paid by the number of classes they teach, not the number of hours they work,” McAbee said.

To address that challenge, GA created a formula to calculate the number of hours worked per week by adjunct faculty.

“For every credit hour assigned to a semester-long course, the professor will be credited for three hours of work time,” she said.

So, for a three-hour course, an adjunct professor would be credited with nine hours working hours per week. Assistant professors and lecturers are not included in this formula.

“They are under 12-month contracts and therefore eligible for the insurance available to all permanent employees,” McAbee said.

The State Health Plan designed a less expensive plan for the employees eligible for this kind of coverage. It differs from the plan offered to permanent employees in that it is administered by MedCost instead of Blue Cross Blue Shield and the open enrollment period is Nov. 1–30 instead of Oct. 1–31.

For information about this plan and the open enrollment periods for permanent and temporary employees, visit the Division of Human Resources website.