Petunia #1: Meristem Bio, ReaGenics, Plantik Biosciences
Petunia #1: Meristem Bio, ReaGenics, Plantik Biosciences
Karen Sarkisyan from LightBio and Nathaniel Chu from Plonts
Petunia is the new Biopunk section for plant synthetic biology companies, conversations, papers, and creative thinking beyond agriculture. Every week features a new plant; read til the end to learn about it!
🚀 PlantCos
Chilean GM🍊range by Meristem
Chilean based company improving elite fruit cultivars through precision breeding (i.e. gene editing) and developing new varieties such as pitless cherries.
Started targeting PDS (phytoene desaturase, involved in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway) genes to achieve an albino phenotype and achieved a compound heterozygous edit (insertion in one allele, deletion in the other) that is less likely to be naturally repaired by the plant.
What modifications do they intend to make? Citruses around the world suffer from a lot of pest problems but the company’s mission seems to be more aligned with designer fruit.
Israeli Popato 💪 by ReaGenics
Israeli molecular farming startup that produces proteins, cannabis, herbal medicines, and therapeutic psychedelics
Increased protein concentration from 2% to 31% in cultured potato cells by optimizing their culture conditions and applying different stressors like temperature and phytohormones. All Non GMO, same amino acid spectrum as soil-grown potato, non-allergenic, no unpleasant smell or aftertaste common to most plant proteins.
Potential applications include plant-based meat or plant-based milk, fries and potato chips like Pringles made from potato paste with higher protein content.
Are they growing the “potato paste” directly in-vitro, purifying the proteins from cell cultures, or regenerating plants to harvest enhanced produce in the fields? It’s unclear from their website and the article.
French Bikini Cannabis 🥵 by Plantik
Parisian startup building a bioinformatics platform to discover what plant genes to edit through CRISPR, faster, starting with thermotolerant cannabis. Not much else is mentioned but here are some other things I learned through their content:
In 2018, a heatwave in Europe led to the loss of up to 50% of its crops in impacted regions.
While a GMO (transgenic) can take up to 14 years to go to the market, GE (gene edited) crops are already regulated in many countries like the US, Japan, and India such that today it takes ≤5 years to commercialize it.
🎙️ ConVos
Karen Sarkisyan from LightBio 🔦
Can you create a market for novel consumer plants? Where do you find one? What market numbers do you show investors in any case? Karen acknowledged it was hard to get funded and that their investors took a particularly risky bet on them, on the market side. He left me thinking…
While the floriculture business works through agricultural producers as middle men between “seed developers” and retailers, the world’s tides are changing towards direct-to-consumer. Never forget the golden rule though: you absolutely CANNOT ride this tide unless you have an AGGRESSIVE social media strategy.
Making this viral on TikTok and Instagram, sending some flowers to beloved influencers, at exhibitions, museums, botanical gardens or something… just getting the word out there is what I think their core priority should be now that the technology has been de-risked for the most part. Again, IF they are to remain a B2C.
If the answer to my first questions is no, then I think they could still become a very interesting novel plant development platform that expands to other super exciting and still magical use cases. What core IP are they developing? I left the convo with more questions than answers and I kinda like that.
Nathaniel Chu from Plonts 🧀
What stood out to me in their white paper is how they focused the narrative on lactose intolerant people, both in product development and advertising, not only environmental impact. I also thought their launch ad was brilliantly creative and clearly appealed a young audience.
My highlight from the convo was how AI can be hyped up even in science-based companies, when their product is not the AI (I was thinking of those other plant-based food cos). It now makes sense what people mean when they say: it’ll come the time when saying “we use AI” will sound like “we use the internet”. Important, yet just another tool in the box.
🌿 Imagine
I learned about Victoria boliviana when I visited Kew Botanical Gardens in London. It turns out that the horticulturist is Spanish and is known as the Plant Messiah for his peculiar ability to “resuscitate” exotic plants… you know, save them from extinction.
Carlos received its seeds, native to Bolivia, in 2016 and rediscovered the 3-meter-in-diameter waterlily giants (among the largest in the world) that can support the weight of even a small child. Their flowers, which first bloom white, reopen in a pink or red hue, releasing their pollinators they spent the day with.
Many dream about a future with dinosaurs or new pets. I think that, as with many biotechnologies, plants will humbly lead the way for new markets, products and experiences. Can you imagine an attraction park with the weirdest new plants you can interact with through a sensorial experience? See, smell, taste, hear, and touch biological technology: a secret world of magic.
Sofia is a biotechnologist and entrepreneur trained at Stanford, Imperial College London, and Tec de Monterrey. She designs new plants and writes Biopunk off her most creative biotech dreams and provocative conversations with biotech leaders.