Startups Bioheuris and Benson Hill Partner to Develop Herbicide-Tolerant Crops
ST. LOUIS and Rosario, Argentina—May 10, 2018—Benson Hill , a crop improvement company dedicated to unlocking the natural genetic diversity of plants, and Bioheuris, an agribiotech startup developing herbicide-resistant crops through non-GMO approaches, announced a partnership to apply gene editing technology in soybeans, sorghum and wheat.
Benson Hill empowers organizations of any size to leverage the most advanced tools in seed innovation, accelerating their R&D programs without major infrastructure costs or distraction from their core business. Through this partnership, Bioheuris will combine Benson Hill’s CRISPR 3.0 genome editing technology with its plant tissue culture and directed evolution platforms to introduce herbicide tolerance in crops.
“For decades, advanced genomics R&D was limited to just a handful of large multi-national companies working on just a few crops. Benson Hill’s CRISPR 3.0 technology equips our scientists to develop the herbicide-tolerance targets farmers need using faster, less costly non-GMO methods. The ability to access such cutting-edge science through a truly fair and equitable partnership is the model our industry needs to bring real choice and profitability to farmers.”
-Carlos Perez, CEO and co-founder of Bioheuris
Benson Hill’s CRISPR 3.0 nucleases are part of the suite of genome editing capabilities Benson Hill provides to partners to leverage the natural genetic diversity of plants and accelerate crop performance improvements. Because of their compact size and simple structure, Benson Hill’s novel nucleases are among the easiest to package and deliver to cells, enabling efficient genome editing.
“Bioheuris represents the next generation of more nimble seed innovators using advanced genomics to create more choice for farmers. As a company committed to empowering innovation, we are thrilled to equip the scientists of Bioheuris with the most advanced tools available to help execute their strategy.”
– Matt Crisp, CEO and co-founder of Benson Hill
About Bioheuris—Bioheuris is an Argentine company dedicated to the development of technologies for the control of weeds and their introduction in crops. Its non-GMO technology platform combines in vitro culture of plant tissues, directed evolution of herbicide targets and genomic editing of crops of agronomic interest. More information can be found in www.bioheuris.com.
About Benson Hill —Benson Hill empowers innovators with a revolutionary crop design platform to develop healthier and more sustainable crops. Our CropOS™ platform combines machine learning and big data with genome editing and plant biology to drastically accelerate and simplify the product development process. More information can be found online at www.bensonhill.com. Follow us on Twitter at @bensonhillinc.
