STTR Phase I: XERICO-Mediated Drought Tolerance Technology

这一小企业技术转让项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过生物技术开发耐旱作物，这在经济和环境方面都具有潜在的重要性。 由于植物对水分胁迫反应的复杂性，抗旱基因工程一直是植物研究的热点。所提出的技术提供了新的功能，以克服目前的限制。 这项技术的商业部署将大大提高种植者和种子公司的盈利能力，并通过在干旱土地上进行作物生产而造福社会。 主要目标市场是转基因玉米种子产业。 如果玉米能够被改造以表现出耐旱性，则存在重大的市场机会。 玉米是人类消费和动物饲料种植的第二大谷物，占全球470亿美元种子市场的43%以上。商业战略将是通过与主要的玉米种子公司以及在育种、商业种子生产、营销和销售方面具有专业知识的中型种子公司合作，渗透市场。STTR第一阶段项目提出开发一种专有的、具有潜在变革性的技术，以提高植物的耐旱性。 它利用植物的自然反应系统，以更好地保护它免受干旱胁迫。 这种耐旱机制是以高度干旱特异性的方式使用的，以避免在耐旱技术中经常观察到的生长惩罚。此外，这种耐旱性是在植物中其他生物过程受到有限干扰的情况下实现的。在其有效性在现场条件下得到验证之前，该技术的技术风险仍然很高，很难吸引潜在的行业合作伙伴。该项目的目标是获得降低技术风险所需的实地核查数据，从而使其对潜在的许可证合作伙伴具有吸引力。该公司将通过实现两个具体目标来实现这一目标：1）鉴定和选择在温室条件下表现出强耐旱性的转基因品系，2）进行田间试验以验证温室性能。 该项目的成功完成将使该公司能够有一个广泛的许可证战略，针对玉米种子公司的商业化。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project is the development of drought-tolerant crops through biotechnology, which is potentially both economically and environmentally important. Genetic engineering of drought tolerance has been very recalcitrant because of the complexity of plant responses to water stress. The proposed technology offers novel features to overcome the current limitations. Commercial deployment of this technology will improve significantly the profitability of growers and seed companies, and will benefit society by enabling crop production on arid lands. The primary target market is the genetically engineered corn seed industry. A significant market opportunity is present if corn can be modified to express drought tolerance. Corn is the second most plentiful cereal grown for human consumption and animal feeds, and accounts for over 43% of the $47 billion global seed market. The commercial strategy will be to penetrate the market by partnering with the major corn seed companies as well as mid-size seed companies with expertise in breeding, commercial seed production, marketing, and sales.This STTR Phase I project proposes to develop a proprietary and potentially transformative technology to increase drought tolerance in plants. It utilizes a plant's natural response system to better protect it from drought stress. This drought tolerance mechanism is employed in a highly drought-specific manner to avoid the growth penalty often observed with drought tolerance technologies. In addition, this drought tolerance is achieved with limited perturbation of other biological processes in the plants. Until its effectiveness is validated under field conditions, the technical risk of the technology remains very high and engaging potential industry partners likely will be difficult. The goal of this project is to obtain the field verification data that is needed to decrease the technical risk, thus making it attractive to potential licensing partners. The company will reach the goal by achieving two specific objectives: 1) Identification and selection of transgenic lines that show strong drought tolerance under greenhouse conditions, and 2) Conducting field tests to validate the greenhouse performance. Successful completion of this project would enable the company to have a broad licensing strategy directed towards corn seed companies for commercialization.