Synopsis

Entrepreneurs Dr Will Pelton and Dr Nick Kral, founders of Phytoform Labs, explain the genome editing technology that is the foundation of their business and share why they are excited about their platform’s potential to deliver new crop traits efficiently, safely and sustainably. 

Introducing a new trait into a crop can take years with traditional breeding methods.  Pelton and Kral discuss speeding up the process and improving accuracy by adopting recent genome editing developments in plant breeding technology, akin to the well known CRISPR, and describe how they’re using artificial intelligence to build new exploration tools to develop novel crop traits.

As the global regulatory framework for new breeding technologies continues to evolve, the founders of Phytoform Labs explain how they’re working to make the most impact with their technology and why they hope to improve the sustainability of the agricultural supply chain, starting with trait development in the Solanaceae family.