Syngenta Crop Protection, a leader in agricultural innovation, and Ginkgo Bioworks, which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, July 16 announced a new cooperation aimed at accelerating the launch of a new biological solution. The two companies have previously collaborated on next-generation seed technology.

Through this new collaboration, Ginkgo plans to develop and optimize a microbial strain that can meet the productivity targets of a secondary metabolite from the Syngenta Biologicals pipeline. This molecule is earmarked by Syngenta as a pioneering biological solution. Successful cost-effective and large-scale production of this targeted metabolite would significantly expedite Syngenta's go-to-market timeline for its latest biological solution.

To achieve this, Ginkgo will use its Ag Biologicals capabilities to calculate theoretical performance and guide rational strain engineering strategies to develop the microbial strain that is robust enough to meet Syngenta’s goals. Ginkgo will leverage its biological knowledge and machine learning approaches to develop insights from multiple complex data sources and apply this toward diagnosing strain performance limitations as well as biological feature discovery.

“Biologicals are increasingly important in addressing the need for efficient and sustainable agricultural solutions worldwide. At Syngenta, we are committed to providing farmers with greater complementary product and technology choices that promote sustainable agricultural practices,” said Camilla Corsi, Global Head of Research at Syngenta Crop Protection. “We are excited to work with Ginkgo, and are confident that their distinctive capabilities will enable us to achieve our productivity goals for our targeted molecule, expediting our time to market.”

“We are so excited to expand our relationship with Syngenta. We’ve built a successful relationship from our work together on plant traits and now look forward to doing the same with ag biologicals,” Magalie Guilhabert, Head of Ag Biologicals at Ginkgo Bioworks, said. Ginkgo is proud to put our excellent assets and experience against some of our customer’s toughest challenges. We’ll work to achieve productivity levels to realize commercial viability for Syngenta’s innovative ag biologicals product launch.”

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