Tropic Biosciences Collaborates with BASF

By CIOReview | Friday, July 31, 2020

Tropic Biosciences has announced about their research agreement with BASF to utilize Tropic’s ground-breaking GEiGS (Gene Editing induced Gene Silencing) technology.

FREMONT, CA: Tropic Biosciences has announced about their research agreement with BASF to utilize Tropic’s ground-breaking GEiGS (Gene Editing induced Gene Silencing) technology. The research has developed qualities that will help address growers’ most severe challenges while protecting crops.

The partnership concerns the Tropic Bioscience GEiGS platform in the BASF’s strategic crop diversities and uses BASF’s proficiency in the expansion of agricultural traits. According to Brian Vande Berg, Vice President of Trait Research in BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division, “Our R&D teams must continue to innovate to address the most pressing challenges in agriculture, so we welcome this new tool to accelerate the delivery of sustainable trait solutions to farmers.” Moreover, due to the agreement, Tropic Biosciences will produce GEiGS candidates who will have the chance to the BASF discovery pipeline for developing disease and pest control traits.

The Chief Commercial Officer of Tropic Biosciences, Jack Peart, commented: “We are excited to make the GEiGS platform available for use by other companies, and we are delighted to see it being applied not only in tropical crops but now in row crops through our collaboration with BASF. GEiGS is a powerful platform that allows us to address some of the most critical disease and pest pressures faced by growers today.”

GEiGS technology makes use of the conventional genome editing devices so that they can make an accurate and specific transformation to only a few nucleotides inside the non-coding genomic locations of a host organism. Such transformation redirects RNA interference (RNAi, also Gene Silencing) activity of non-coding genes to the targeted genes that even consists of those belonging to pathogens and pests. The method does not rely on the introduction of foreign genes in the host genome.

Tropic Biosciences established GEiGS so that it can support its product development, for instance, the production of lines of banana that will be unaffected to Panama disease, which is a devastating fungal disease that is threatening production globally. Gilad Gershon, CEO of Tropic Biosciences, said, “Our aim is to help farmers increase productivity and improve sustainable environmental practices for tropical crops by applying cutting-edge gene editing technologies. GEiGS is attractive for us as it radically expands our ability to develop and commercialize non-transgenic disease resistance traits.”