Dow, Wageningen to Collaborate on Potato Genome

(Agricultural Research Service, USDA)

Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen UR (University and Research Center) in Wageningen, the Netherlands agreed to study how a technology developed by Dow can improve the starch quality of potatoes, a food and industrial crop.

Dow’s process, called EXZACT Precision Technology, provides a toolkit for genome modification. Dow says the technology can add, edit, or delete genes at targeted locations in plant genomes, which makes it applicable to engineering of multi-gene stacks, editing native gene sequences, and targeted gene disruption in crops. This new research is expected to extend those capabilities into the potato, a crop that is considered difficult to breed using conventional methods.

Under the agreement, researchers at Wageningen UR in the Netherlands will study the effectiveness of using EXZACT in tetraploid potato, a commonly grown crop that represents a major food and fiber source for millions of people worldwide. Dow will provide its technology as well as access to intellectual property, reagents, and scientific expertise.