Talking Biotech with Dr. Kevin Folta

Strawberry is a popular fruit with tremendous commercial value, and while everyone loves a good strawberry, are they actually getting better? This week’s podcast talks to Dr. Jim Hancock, strawberry …

Could the lowly dandelion solve a crisis?  If Key Gene CEO Dr. Arjen van Tunen and associates are correct, this yard pest may be the basis of sustainable and highly profitable rubber production.  A g…

Dietary reactions to wheat are on the rise, and science is grasping for answers.  One approach to work around the genetic basis of the reaction, and that is well understood.  With that information, s…

When we think of the plants that are important to us, we might think right past the magical shrub that gives us coffee berries.  Coffee underpins major economies in the world, has an interesting hist…

Recent unpublished reports are popping up on the internet that suggest that the herbicide glyphosate is showing up at dangerous levels in a variety of places.  These range from breast milk, to beer, …

Dr. Leena Tripathi is a leader in banana biotechnology, working at IITA in Nairobi, Kenya.  She has been publishing prolifically on a number of solutions for banana disease resistance using genetic e…

If you tell a stranger that something called “delta endotoxin” is as close as it gets to a miracle, they’d likely respond in one of two ways.  They’d either want you to seek counseling, or find out i…

Cherries are a perennial favorite fruit.  However, they are a tree, so their genetic improvement is slow.  Episode 27 features Dr. Amy Iezzoni, as she discusses cherry genetic origins and efforts to …

The story of how genetic engineering saved the Hawaiian papaya industry gets lost in the discussion of agronomic crop uses of the technology.  This story is important because this is not just a story…

In today’s Talking Biotech Podcast the first guest is Keira Havens.   She’s the CEO of Revolution Bio, a company turned non-profit that is interested in using the power of plants to introduce the pub…

Improving plants with biotechnology is not just genetic engineering, it is using tools of molecular biology and genomics to guide traditional breeding strategies.  In this episode Dr. Harry Klee from…

Several weeks ago there was a request for Talking Biotech Podcast to interview Prof Graeme Martin.  Prof Martin has a long career in animal reproductive biology, and in recent times has had more focu…

Biotech innovation in cassava is necessary to speeding genetic improvement of this food staple. Together with breeding efforts, the new resources derived define new crops that primarily serve the dev…

Cassava (Manihot esculentum) is a critical world food crop, the third most consumed staple outside of rice and maize.  It is even more critical because it is a vigorous plant that grows well in chall…

This eThis episode of Talking Biotech invites you to be the investigator and data collector.  The internet is littered with images that claim animals will not eat GMO corn, which is curious because 8…

Today chemophobia rules supreme.  From fast-food establishments to farming critics, everyone seems to be an expert, except the experts!
Talking Biotech #19 features The SciBabe, Yvette d’Entremont (@T…

The topic of “pesticides” is the new frontier in the opposition to agricultural biotechnology.  Opponents of the technology blame new genetic improvement methods for perceived increases in chemical c…

This week we’re joined by Richard Levine, communications director for the Entomological Society of America.  We discuss bees, butterflies, insecticides and some of the current issues in crop protecti…

This week features two discussions with fellows serving in the Global Leadership Program of the Cornell Alliance for Science.  The first part is a discussion with Nassib Mugwanya, Outreach Leader for…

This episode is an introduction to tomatoes, popular fruits that provide great variation to the eye and palate, as well as the foundation of many recipes. Surprisingly, tomatoes are fragile fruits an…