Plant-based synthetic biology continues to play a role in novel ingredient discovery, which ultimately helps alleviate global food chains from socio-economic and environmental strains. In this space, Calyxt has completed the first phase of its research project to develop an “improved soybean” capable of producing an oil as a commercial alternative to palm oil.

This development comes at a crucial time in the international dialogue regarding the deforestation impact of traditional palm oil sourcing and production.

Calyxt’s technology platform, PlantSpring, is founded on its more than a decade of research in engineering plant metabolism.

The process includes the identification of breakthrough plant compounds based on customer needs, designing strategies to reprogram host cells, engineering plant cell metabolism to optimally produce targeted plant-based chemistries, and producing those target chemistries at laboratory scale.

PlantSpring operates on AI and machine learning capabilities. These help the company process knowledge gained from past research activities, which can be combined with predictive analytics to rapidly prototype and provide feedback.

All in all, the company says this accelerates the time to complete the “design-engineer-verify” development cycle of newly discovered food compounds, while helping mitigate the risks associated with commercial scale-up.

Calyxt has begun the second and final phase of the research collaboration and expects to complete its final phase in the first quarter of 2024.

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