Creating Plants to Feed a Climate-Changing World

When Dr. Noel Sauer decided to forego a career in academic research to jump into the front lines of plant biology, she had no idea she’d be literally helping to feed the world amidst a rapidly changing world. Yet, the Vice President of Research at Cibus finds herself in exactly that position.

“I was divided between doing academic research and getting into biotech, but I chose biotech because you can take the science you learned and quickly apply it to make everything better — people, the environment,” she said. “It became my passion to try to make things better. Different experiences along the way helped navigate me in the right direction. I didn’t box myself in, but followed my heart to what excited me. Which is what I’m doing today.”

What Dr. Sauer is doing today is leading a team of 80 scientists to strengthen the natural cell biologies of the most important food crops in the world — canola, rice, corn, flax, soybeans, wheat and potatoes. By using an innovative process she calls “making DNA spelling changes,” she and the Cibus team are working with the plants’ stem cells to create stronger, hardier and more adaptable varieties to feed a growing population (estimated by the UN to be 10 billion by 2050) in an increasingly harsh environment. Best of all? This nontransgenic process does not introduce GMOs or other foreign substances into the native DNA.

“Climate change is a defining issue of our time,” Dr. Sauer said. “For agriculture, that means understanding how plants can adapt to shifting weather patterns. Cibus wants to be part of that solution by developing plants that can thrive and provide higher yields despite these changes.

“With climate change, the key issue is drought tolerance, as things get hotter and drier. The traits we’re developing and bringing into crops enable the plants to grow in drier conditions, and are also more adaptable in non-familiar regions, with greater water use efficiencies. We want plants that are both disease resistant and drought tolerant, so we put in traits the plant needs to flourish in that changing environment. We want to provide this for the world. This is our vision as a company.”

Cibus’ efforts are among the most important in national and global agriculture today. It begins with the #2 protein meal and #3 vegetable oil product in the world, canola, which is grown in colder climates like Canada, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Europe. In North America alone, that amounts to 46 million acres. Cibus has identified and added three specific traits, which combine to provide plants that can better withstand all three outcomes of climate change — drier conditions, warmer temperatures, and a growing problem with weeds and insects.

“We work with the seeds in canola pods,” Dr. Sauer explained. “Due to changing weather and soil conditions, many pods now fall to the ground pre-harvest, reducing yields up to 40 percent. We want to increase yields, which we need between climate change and the increasing population. Another trait we’re developing makes canola resistant to white mold, something that can reduce yield by up to 50 percent. With this resistance, we can reduce the use of fungicides and control the disease. We’re also developing a new system for weed control, which also increases yield.”

Cibus is furthest along with their canola work, now made available to farmers through Falco Seeds, a Canadian company. They’re also working with a partner to distribute their enhanced varieties of rice, in which they’ve added two traits to increase yield and build tolerance against herbicides. “Rice needs to globally sustain in order to feed 1 billion people; it’s the most valuable, consumed crop in the world,” Dr. Sauer said. “Rice and other crops have to compete with weeds for nutrients and sunlight. It’s really important to have natural weed control, to feed more people.”

Another effort moving toward market comes with wheat, which involves yet another specific process within the plant’s cell biology. As Dr. Sauer explained, “We actually make spelling changes in the protoplast (the plant’s stem cells) to germinate stronger plants, and we can develop its clone. We work in a single-cell environment, working with protoplast in both rice and flax.”

The deeper science behind all of Cibus’ efforts concerns making “spelling changes” within the plants’ DNA, without adding any outside material. “We’re making plants hardier, optimizing their use of water better, and increasing sustainability by optimizing the plant itself,” Dr. Sauer said. Cibus scientists can change any A,T, C, or G characteristic in plant genomes to another A, T, C or G of their choosing. Rather than making these changes in the lab, they work with actual varieties of the crop plant to create elite, more sustainable varieties.

The biggest benefits? According to Dr. Sauer, the process pushes the crop plant’s natural evolution forward while also fortifying it for these times. “We don’t interbreed over the course of, say, a decade, which is how botanists would create hardier plants,” she said. “We make the changes in elite varieties to eliminate breeding, which cuts down the time to get it to market. Instead of a decade, it can be a few years.

“Evolution can’t keep up with climate change at its present pace, but technology can help plants keep up and improve them so they don’t go extinct,” she added.

All of this is happening not in a megalithic operation like Monsanto, but in a small San Diego-based company with 120 employees, with other offices in

Minnesota and Canada – the heart of canola country. Cibus began 20 years ago, with most of its key researchers and plant scientists on the team for a decade or more. As Dr. Sauer explained, Cibus’ small size and team expertise has enabled it to pivot and adapt in ways a larger agribusiness concern cannot. Think of it as the difference in maneuverability between a speedboat and a cargo ship.

“We’ve spent a lot of time optimizing our technology. Because of that, we were ready to be really innovative as a small company, ready to tackle a huge worldwide problem — feeding the world in a time of climate change. It’s really exciting to be on the front lines, and our company is in the right place with our technology at the right time.”

Cibus’ canola efforts are already apparent in increasing crop yields in North America. The next major rollout will come with rice, followed by wheat and the other core food crops. The company believes that, as the decade continues, their science will not only produce hardier plants, but also make a monumental difference in how many people and animals can be fed with more nutritious and naturally-grown crops.