CTC leverages Ginkgo’s Plant Trait Services to discover and optimize novel molecules to control sugarcane pests

Ginkgo Bioworks announced its new partnership with Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira (CTC), the world’s largest sugarcane technology center, to address a critical agricultural challenge in Brazil.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer and exporter of sugarcane, yet suffers hundreds of millions of dollars in crop damage a year due to sugarcane pests. With this partnership, CTC and Ginkgo aim to accelerate innovation in crop protection traits, so sugarcane farmers can grow healthier and more resilient crops.

CTC will leverage Ginkgo’s Plant Trait Services to discover biocontrol molecules to control sugarcane pests. Ginkgo intends to use its expertise in bioinformatics to design and build thousands of molecules. These molecules will then be tested against a microbial host system to simulate biological activity. Ginkgo aims to optimize these molecules and deliver those with the highest likelihood of success in killing the sugarcane pests.

Subsequently, CTC will use its deep prowess in sugarcane biotechnology to design and develop innovative plant traits with optimal protection against these pests, ultimately providing a long lasting crop management solution for the growers.

"We are thrilled to partner with CTC to propel this groundbreaking technology forward. Ginkgo looks forward to applying our Plant Trait Services and our advanced discovery and engineering platform to enhance plant traits in collaboration with CTC. By leveraging the versatile toolkit of synthetic biology, we’re confident in our ability to tackle pressing agricultural issues like this head-on."

MAGALIE GUILHABERT, HEAD OF AG BIOLOGICALS, GINKGO BIOWORKS

"Collaborating with Ginkgo reinforces CTC’s commitment to being at the forefront of sugarcane technology development. With CTC’s long history of innovation with sugarcane and Ginkgo’s best-in-class discovery and engineering services, we’re hopeful that our combined experience will help to accelerate the development of novel biotechnology products to mitigate critical agricultural pest problems and contribute to the resilience of the Brazilian sugarcane industry."

SABRINA CHABREGAS, CTC R&D DIRECTOR

The next novel plant trait is waiting to be discovered and optimized.