CRISPR is a groundbreaking gene editing technology that could revolutionize how doctors treat illnesses like cancer and sickle cell disease. A company in Research Triangle Park has a more modest goal for CRISPR: Getting people to eat more fruits and vegetables.
It starts with the humble mustard green. Uncooked, these leafy vegetables are a great source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. But the taste is a little much, kind of like wasabi or horse radish. The pungent flavor is created by an enzyme in the greens that reacts with saliva in the mouth.
Pairwise is working on a type of mustard green without tang at its RTP lab. “The changes that we’re making are changes that you can actually find in nature,” said CEO Tom Adams. So, they’re not like what GMO is.”
GMOs, genetically modified organisms, use genes imported from other plants and animals. GMO crops have faced consumer resistance and strict U.S. and European Union regulations.
Adams said Pairwise is speeding up a process that plant breeders have used for centuries — combining plant types to create new variations. “It takes all of that cost and time out of creating the right outcome, but the outcome is something that you could get from traditional breeding,” he said.
Editing a plant’s genome isn’t like cutting and pasting in a Word document. First, you need to identify the trait you want to get rid of — like the enzyme that creates the mustard green’s pungent taste.
“We locate the gene that causes a trait,” said plant scientist Deepika Chauhan, explaining how she and her colleagues created a pitless cherry. “We identify the gene sequences that will affect that trait or create that desired trait that we are looking for. We program our tools that are our proprietary tools to identify the gene and create the edits.”
A specially designed bacterium introduces the new trait into the plant cells. After that, the plants head to a grow chamber and greenhouse. Chauhan and her colleagues check to see if their gene edits were successful at each phase.
Pairwise CEO Tom Adams said the mustard greens were the first of his company’s products sold to the public. The company tried marketing them directly to restaurants and distributors, but licensing the sale and distribution made more sense. Free samples were handed out at farmers’ markets in Austin, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area under the name Conscious Greens.
“It’s areas where people know technology, but they also can be skeptical of technology,” he said. “We put up booths, and we described how we made them. We offered them salads, and very few people didn’t want to eat the salad because they saw the tangible value of it.”
According to surveys, Adams said 90% of the 3,000 or so people who tried the greens liked them. So, how do they taste? A bit like spinach or arugula; they have a healthy flavor but are not overwhelming.
Pairwise is working with pharmaceutical and agricultural company Bayer to get the greens on store shelves soon. It’s one of several companies in RTP experimenting with gene editing to create new crop varieties. Elo Life Systems is working on a new species of banana resistant to a deadly fungus that could wipe out much of the world’s crop.
