For another seven years, his son, Giles, tried to find a way to mass-produce the enzyme and find a market for it.

Last month, Giles Shih's Morrisville company, BioResource International, got its first contracts.

Giles Shih estimates that this year -- after years without any substantial income -- BRI will generate about $1 million in revenue. He plans to expand the marketing and sales team, as well as look for a company to become a BioResource partner. Shih -- pronounced "she" -- said the company should break even in 2008.

"It's kind of a dream come true," Shih said.

The years of research and development have paid off with two products, both using the original enzyme that Jason Shih discovered.

One product, Versazyme, is used as a supplement in animal feed to help animals absorb more nutrients.

The other, Valkerase, breaks down keratin -- the tough, tightly woven protein fiber that makes up hair, fingernails, hooves and chicken feathers -- and allows feathers to be used as feed.

The timing for bringing the two products to market is good.

For the past few years, poultry producers have battled fierce competition and rising production costs. The price of feed has been a particular concern in the past year. Corn, one of the main ingredients in chicken feed, has long been plentiful and cheap. But lately the push for ethanol fuel -- made from corn -- has doubled the price of a bushel of corn, Giles Shih said. Prices of other feed crops, such as soybeans, have also increased, he said.

To help offset costs, poultry companies are looking for ways to grow bigger chickens with less feed.

Enter BioResource.

A lot of animal food is made from byproducts of foods sold to humans. Usually, those byproducts are very hard to digest, said Jim Garlich, a retired professor from N.C. State University's poultry science department and a consultant to BioResource. Garlich said that Versazyme helps to make most animal feed 80 percent to 90 percent digestible. This means that chicken growers could spend less on feed, but get the same nutritional benefits.

Valkerase, which allows the feathers to be turned into feed, is also a cheaper alternative to using corn. The market for it is particularly good overseas, where animal feed is even more expensive than in the United States.

Indeed, Giles Shih was in the middle of pitching the enzyme Versazyme, as a supplement, to a major poultry producer in Thailand, when the talk turned to Valkerase.

"She said, 'We want to know about the one your father was working on,' " Giles Shih said.

That conversation led to BRI's first order for Valkerase. The deal was major. The original shipment, which was sent in December, was 5.5 tons, with plans to purchase 50 tons a year.

Soon after, BRI got its second order, this time to ship 20 tons a month of Versazyme to a large U.S. poultry company whose name Shih said he would not disclose. "Everything is starting to come together," Giles Shih said.

But getting to this point has been tough.

The journey started in 1987, when Jason Shih, a professor of biotechnology and poultry science at N.C. State University, was processing chicken manure into the methane used for natural gas. He discovered that an enzyme in the resulting bacteria would break down the protein in chicken feathers.

He thought the discovery had the potential to create significant savings for poultry producers, because chicken feathers can be ground into chicken feed. But it took years of research to discover how to harvest the enzyme. He had to isolate the bacteria strain, analyze its DNA and then figure a way to copy the bacteria in a controlled environment. Once that was done, it was Giles Shih's turn to figure out how to mass-produce the enzyme and conduct trials in the market.

"Getting the production up to where you need it requires a lot of technical experience and mechanical engineering," Giles Shih said.

Because animal feed was relatively cheap at the time of their initial work, there was little immediate interest in Valkerase. Until recently, Shih focused his marketing efforts on the feed supplement and kept the five-employee company afloat using about $3 million from angel investors and grants.

Jason Shih, who is a part-time consultant for BRI, continued to encourage his son. At the same time, Giles Shih, who has a doctorate in microbiology and is a graduate of NCSU and Emory University, worked on a master's degree in business at Duke University.

"I wanted to learn more about running a business," he said. "I felt I was ... learning by the seat of my pants."

Despite seeing his family's effort pay off, all the waiting has left Giles Shih a bit skeptical. "I still have concerns that this is really going to take off," he said.

Others familiar with BRI's products are more optimistic.

"BRI is close to market," said Bob Buehler, operations manager of a Hubbard Feeds mill in Selma, where BRI's product is mixed. "Lots of poultry is harvested on the East Coast, from Georgia to New England. They are looking for feed mills like mine that sell them enzymes in the mix. That helps them save in the cost of production."

And although BRI must compete with a couple of large, established companies, such as Denmark-based Novozymes, which has operations in Franklin County, Garlich thinks it has a good chance.

"Yes, there are other companies out there selling similar products," said Garlich, "but I happen to think this product BRI makes is particularly effective."

"It's economical, in that it does what it says it will do -- saves companies money."