Resilient Plants: Drought & Pest Resistance through Gene Editing with Dr. Voytas

When you listen, you’ll learn about these innovations and more:

• How genome editing in plants can lead to soybean oil that replaces environmentally-problematic oils like palm oil or coco butter. 
• How Dr. Voytas is creating wheat with higher dietary fiber and more healthful benefits.
• Why gene editing can produce crops immune to pathogens and insects.
• How gene editing can increase food supply across the globe.

In this podcast, Dr. Daniel Voytas, McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor, Director of the Center for Precision Plant Genomics at the University of Minnesota, and founder of Clayxt, shares these and other exciting advances in genome editing in plants.

Dr. Voytas’ work with the Center for Precision Plant Genomics centers on improving genome editing in plants through precise editing, substitution, and mutation techniques. The center's goal is to create plants that can withstand challenges like drought and insect predation while maintaining more healthful components. At the university, most of this work involves model plants that work well for experimentation. 

About ten years ago, Dr. Voytas started the company Calyxt, which transfers that technology into developing new food crops like soybeans with altered genes that offer various benefits. For example, gene editing allowed them to inactivate the gene that converts the oil in the soybean seeds from monounsaturated to polyunsaturated fat. The company produced their first gene-edited product for sale with this monounsaturated soybean oil that has a much longer life for deep frying.

For more information on how to contact Dr. Voytas, see https://cbs.umn.edu/contacts/daniel-voytas-phd.