CRISPR Products, Realized

For generations, breeders have leveraged the natural diversity in plants to bring out traits that make them more nutritious, more productive, better tasting, and more sustainable. This experience teaches us that the best products begin with the best genetics.  

But the downside is that traditional breeding methods can take decades, even centuries, to produce plants with the desired attributes. The power of CRISPR is that it enables us to quickly introduce gene edits that bestow these valuable characteristics. By starting with the best varieties, then learning from nature how to use CRISPR to add the best attributes from other varieties, we’re able to improve crops in ways that traditional breeding simply couldn't. 

We start with a deep understanding of plants, down to the DNA sequences that control different traits. Next, we study the relationship between the plants’ DNA and their traits to discover how to apply CRISPR to make plants, including bushes and trees, with new, targeted characteristics for different growing systems. 

We’re able to look at the natural diversity in each plant’s wild relatives to understand just how much room there is for improvement. Often, desirable variants may have been left behind by traditional breeding, like in the example of a variety of fruit that is bred to stay fresh when being shipped across the United States, versus bred for appealing flavor.

Once we’ve identified our approach, then we use CRISPR proteins to target the DNA we want to edit, or even go beyond what exists in the wild to create a whole new set of traits. This ability to not just knock out undesired traits, but rather to replicate the variation that nature uses, enables us to create the same sort of nuanced changes that occur in nature. For example, we can go beyond “turning off” flavor completely in a plant’s genome, and modulate its flavor to hit a specific flavor profile. This is how we deliver better products. 

Our innovation began with exclusive licenses in plants to base editing and high-fidelity enzymes from Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. From there, our team has developed a whole portfolio of proprietary systems for which we own the foundational IP.  Plus, our founders - David Liu, PhD, Feng Zhang, PhD, and J. Keith Joung, PhD -  are thought leaders in the field of CRISPR and gene editing, as well as skilled in bringing tech-enabled products to market across an array of crops and sectors. 

We also have developed innovative tools that enable us to apply CRISPR technology in a manner that no one else in the world can. One such proprietary tool is REDRAW™, or RNA encoded DNA replacement of alleles with CRISPR, a precise templated editing toolbox that can make any type of small edit at CRISPR-targeted sites. 

Another such tool is SHARC™, a proprietary enzyme that works well for cutting, base editing, and REDRAW editing, and is becoming the foundation for a proprietary genome editing tool. Because of their novel performance characteristics, both SHARC and REDRAW will have huge potential not only in plants, but in other fields, like medicine.