Cibus’ White Mold Resistance Trait in Canola Achieves Another Important Milestone
June 07 2023 - 7:00AM
Cibus, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUS), a leading agricultural
technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed
companies for royalties, today announced that it had additional
greenhouse test results demonstrating successful resistance against
White Mold (Sclerotinia) in canola. This greenhouse tests showed
both an enhanced and an additional mode of action from previously
reported field trial results of the Cibus Sclerotinia resistance
trait. Together, these two different modes of action provide an
increased level of resistance against Sclerotinia than each alone.
The core of Cibus’ gene editing technology is its Rapid Trait
Development System™ or RTDS®. It is a system
of proprietary technologies that integrate crop specific cell
biology platforms with a series of gene editing
technologies. RTDS enables the Trait
Machine™, a stand-alone semi-automated end-to-end precision
breeding system whose traits are indistinguishable from
conventional breeding. Together with the Trait Machine™,
RTDS allows for the successful development of
these traits and the ability to address multiple modes of
action.
“Our exciting new results signal that additional edits can lead
to increased levels of Sclerotinia resistance in canola. Using our
RTDS process, this complex approach to
disease resistance can be generated more quickly as compared to a
conventional breeding program,” stated Greg Gocal, Co-Founder,
Executive Vice President, and Chief Scientific Officer of Cibus.
“Importantly, these new results give us a strong early indication
that developing durable resistance using gene editing is
commercially relevant and possible.”
“We have identified multiple modes of action to generate
resistance to white mold in canola specifically, and pests and
diseases generally. These results are consistent with our work in
disease resistance showing that complex traits comprising multiple
modes of action are possible and can result in durable resistance
to fungal disease,” said David Kendra, Executive Director of
Disease Trait Development of Cibus.
“At Cibus we continue to improve the level of resistance to
Sclerotinia in canola and recognize that the application of these
traits can extend this to multiple crops and potentially multiple
diseases,” said Peter Beetham, Co-Founder, President and Chief
Operating Officer of Cibus. “This is important as climate continues
to impact the speed of change and the geographies of diseases in
crops. These new traits for major crops like canola will allow
farmers to improve yields, lower costs, and reduce their use of
crop protection products like fungicides.”
About SclerotiniaSclerotinia
sclerotiorum is a fungal pathogen, that causes significant
disease (stem rot) in crops including oilseed crops and most
legumes including soybean. It affects 14-30% of canola/oil seed
rape (OSR) fields annually, and potentially up to 90% as estimated
by the Canola Council of Canada in 2016. White mold can reduce
canola yields by 7-15%, with yield losses per infected plant being
as great as 50%. The Canola Council of Canada calls Sclerotinia
stem rot the most economically significant canola disease in
Canada. It is also a significant disease in soybean with a
prevalence of sclerotia recovered ranged between 33.3% (2015) and
78.3% (2020) in soybean production regions and 9.1% (2013) in
sunflower production regions. It is most prevalent in warm moist
environments.
About CibusCibus is a leading agricultural
technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed
companies for royalties. Cibus is a leader in the new era of
gene-edited trait development, where plant traits (or specific
genetic characteristics) that are indistinguishable from traits
developed using traditional breeding are now created using gene
editing. A key element of Cibus’ technology breakthrough is its
patented RTDS® technology platform: the Trait
Machine™ - the industry’s first semi-automated stand-alone trait
production facility. Cibus’ Trait Machine™ materially changes the
speed, breadth, and scale of trait development. This breakthrough
is central to Cibus’ vision for the Future of Breeding: “High
Throughput Gene Editing Systems operating as an extension of seed
company breeding programs”. The ability to develop complex traits
at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional breeding will be
critical for addressing the sustainability challenges
presented by climate change.
CIBUS CONTACTS:
INVESTOR RELATIONSKaren
Troeberktroeber@cibus.com858-450-2636
MEDIA RELATIONSThoedore Lowentlowen@cibus.com914 343 6794
Colin Sanfordcolin@bioscribe.com203-918-4347
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