The word Namya means "to grow" or "to prosper" in Arabic. Recently, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), one of Saudi Arabia's premier research institutions, launched a venture by the same name to help farmers in Saudi Arabia and around the world grow and prosper.
The venture plans to deliver advanced bioactive products that enable farmers to
use fewer agricultural inputs while achieving higher yields and cultivating more resilient crops.
Synthetic fertilisers and other agricultural inputs have boosted crop production for decades. However, their long-term use has contributed to environmental challenges such as soil degradation, water contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Saudi Arabia is now betting on a breakthrough plant growth-promoting technology called MiZax (Zaxinone Mimics), developed at KAUST, as a sustainable alternative to conventional plant growth regulators and biostimulants.
Developed by plant scientist Professor Salim Al-Babili and a multidisciplinary team of researchers, MiZax is protected by multiple KAUST patents. The technology is based on zaxinone, a carotenoid-derived signalling molecule found in plants. Zaxinone influences multiple aspects of plant physiology, often acting as a positive growth regulator while interacting with other plant hormones. In rice, zaxinone generally suppresses excessive strigolactone biosynthesis. Although strigolactones promote beneficial root symbioses and inhibit shoot branching, their overproduction can limit plant growth.
Zaxinone also modulates interactions with beneficial soil microbes, including arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi that enhance nutrient uptake, and helps plants cope with various environmental stresses.
Researchers at KAUST's BioActives Lab identified the molecule and developed synthetic analogues—known as MiZax compounds—that replicate and amplify its beneficial effects. These synthetic mimics were designed to harness zaxinone's growth-promoting properties while remaining stable and easy to apply under field conditions.
KAUST found that zaxinone and its two mimics, MiZax3 and MiZax5, demonstrated promising growth-promoting activity in cereal and vegetable crops under both greenhouse and field conditions. Professor Salim Al-Babili and his team reported that MiZax enhanced plant growth and productivity at application rates far lower than those required for conventional biostimulants used for comparison, highlighting its potential as a resource-efficient agricultural input. Field trials produced impressive results across crops including potato, strawberry, tomato, capsicum, date palm, squash, and several others.
The findings indicate that MiZax is a highly promising plant growth regulator capable of improving the growth and yield of vegetable crops even under harsh desert conditions and at relatively low application rates. Building on more than 12 years of plant science research, KAUST has now launched the spin-off venture Namya to commercialise the technology. Improving crop performance while reducing input requirements is critical to achieving global food security and promoting more resource-efficient agriculture. MiZax could become an important part of that solution.
