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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

CRISPR and Molecular Technology

Danone to Use Brightseed’s AI to Uncover New Health Benefits of Soy and Other Plants

Danone North America and Brightseed announced today that they have formed a partnership to use Brightseed’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to profile and uncover health benefits of key plant sources.

Part of the food as medicine movement, Brightseed is a three-year-old San Francisco startup that examines plants on a molecular level to uncover hidden phytonutrients that can contribute to healthier lifestyles. As it uncovers compounds, Brightseed’s AI platform is then used to predict what impact they will have on the human body.

An example of a phytonutritional compound would be something like the caffeine in coffee or the antioxidants in blueberries.

“We use AI to illuminate the dark matter of nutrition,” Sofia Elizondo, Co-Founder and COO of Brightseed told me by phone this week. “Once you have completed this circle of knowledge. You can transform the food ecosystem.”

Elizondo explained that Brightseed’s platform works for both the sourcing and production sides of CPGs. On the ag side, it can help identify healthy compounds and encourage plant breeding to maximize those benefits. For CPG companies, Brightseed can help source plants that are beneficial and reveal new phytonutrients in existing plant ingredients around which new products can be built.

The partnership with Danone, which owns the Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free brands, will start with Brightseed turning its AI on soy to illuminate the unknown health benefits of soy.

Brightseed, which has raised and undisclosed sum of venture funding, is among a wave of companies using AI to unlock new understandings of our food. Other companies like Spoonshot and Analytical Flavor Systems are using AI to help predict flavor trends and novel food combinations.

But while those companies are looking at existing data, Brightseed is building an entirely new body of data from which entirely new discoveries can be made.

“A lot of technology in our field is built to manipulate nature,” Elizondo said, “There is so much more to learn from what nature has already provided.”

Amid Potato Shortages, People are Worried about French Fries. Could CRISPR Help?

If you’re a french fry lover (guilty), you may have had a mild panic attack this week when news broke that a potato shortage could affect spud supplies. Unusually cold weather in the U.S. and Canada ruined some potato crops, leading to concerns that diminished supply and high demand could lead to a price spike in ‘taters — and a scarcity of french fries.

You don’t need to start stockpiling fries just yet. The New York Times walked back these tater-related fears, noting that consumers “probably shouldn’t worry so much,” and that their french fry suppliers would likely be able to keep up with demand.

This isn’t an isolated incident. With climate change making weather all the more extreme and unpredictable, it’s likely many crops — potatoes and otherwise — will be affected.

One potential solution could be gene editing technologies like CRISPR. Scientists can use these technologies to manipulate the DNA of plants to make them have higher yields and be more resilient to extreme weather conditions. Gene editing is also faster, more accurate, and cheaper than using genetically modified organisms (GMO’s).

If you think that sounds like science fiction… well, it does. But gene editing technology could also be the answer to keeping us in our favorite foods even as populations rise and ocean temperatures rise.

Scientists are already using it to shore up staple crops against the threat of climate change. Yield10, an agriculture bioscience company is developing gene edited seeds for, among other things, potatoes. Companies are also developing new strains of staples like rice and corn that are drought resistant and produce more yield even under harsh weather conditions.

Gene editing can also help non-edible foods become edible; recently scientists figured out how to tweak cotton seeds to make them safe to eat (they’re naturally poisonous).

Similar to GMO’s, gene editing foods, including those made with CRISPR, can be pretty controversial. But as climate change worsens and soil conditions deteriorate, we’ll need to harness a wide variety of agricultural technologies — like gene editing, AI, and maybe even vertical farming — if we want to keep french fries on the menu. That seems reason enough to keep an open mind towards gene editing.

Thanks to Gene Editing, Cotton (Yes, Cotton) Could Be a New Protein Staple

Odds are, you come into contact with cotton every day, in your clothes, your bedsheets, and even your coffee filters.

Soon the “Fabric of Our Lives” might be on your plates, too. Well, sort of. This month the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared a genetically engineered form of cotton, developed by Keerti Rathore, a professor of plant biotechnology at Texas A&M University, officially safe to eat. The gene editing only affects the seeds of the plant, not the fluffy stuff used to make your t-shirts, pants, and socks.

Seeds are often used as a source of protein or fat — think sunflower, pumpkin, etc. — but cotton seeds contain gossypol, a chemical that’s harmful to humans. Food companies have already developed a process to remove the chemical from pressed cottonseed oil, which is currently sold in various food products and vegetable oil mixes. However, Rathore’s process, called “RNA interference,” shuts off the gossypol gene in cotton seeds so people can safely eat them in their whole form. It also keeps the gossypol in the rest of the cotton plant, where it acts as a natural pest deterrent.

Since cotton is relatively plentiful, Rathore told Reuters that he hopes that the seeds could be an affordable, nutrient-rich source of protein when added to products like granola, breads or energy bars. Cottonseed meal (what remains after the seeds have been pressed for oil) could also be used to feed fish, pigs and other animals, all of which are also sensitive to gossypol.

However, it’ll be a while before humans (or fish) get a chance to sample these new gene-edited cotton seeds. Rathore hasn’t given an exact timeline, but he told the New Food Economy he first has to license out his technology to seed companies, which can then sell to farmers.

According to Rathore, the impact from adding cotton seeds to the food system could be significant. “There are approximately 10.8 trillion grams of protein locked up in the annual global output of cottonseed,” he told Reuters. “This is enough to meet the basic protein requirements of over 500 million people at a rate of 50 grams of protein per person per day.” Since many of the world’s cotton-producing countries, specifically in African and Asia, struggle with malnutrition, that protein could make a real difference.

The cotton seeds aren’t the first FDA-approved gene-edited food. Earlier this year biotech company Calyxt began selling a gene-edited soybean oil that doesn’t require trans fats for shelf stability. Yield10 Biosciences is developing genetically engineered corn kernels to produce greater outputs. We’ve also been eating FDA-approved genetically modified foods (GMO’s) for decades, especially corn and soy.

Like GMO’s, gene editing foods — including those made using CRISPR — carry a fair bit of controversy. However, the potential benefits are significant. The new gossypol-free cotton seeds give a glimpse into how gene editing can impact our food system. As climate change and deteriorating soil conditions make it harder to cultivate certain crops, gene editing technology could not only save some of our favorite foods — like coffee and chocolate — but could also help us open the door to entirely new protein sources. Throw in a population set to hit roughly 10 billion by 2050, and these sources could be critical to helping us feed a hungry world.

The Food Tech Show: How Will CRISPR Change Food?

Like life, the food we eat is a series of tradeoffs. Whether it’s that banana we buy at the local grocer or that cup of joe we drink at the corner coffee shop, chances are we are not eating or drinking the tastiest or most nutritious variety of the food but instead that which was able to last the longest in transit or is the most disease resistant.

But what if we could have the best of both worlds?

That’s the promise of CRISPR, a new technology that is essentially a form of genetic scissors allows scientists to “edit” DNA gene sequences. Imagine taking out the bad parts of a food’s DNA gene sequence while adding in or changing parts that help make it taste better or last longer.

That’s what scientists are already doing with CRISPR and gene editing techniques.

To discuss this topic, I caught up with the Pete Rowe, the CEO of Deepbranch Biotechnology, for the latest episode of the Food Tech Show podcast.

Rowe, a molecular microbiologist by training, gave the example of avocados as a food that could benefit from CRISPR and gene editing techniques. “Let’s say the best tasting avocados also happen to be the ones that bruise the easiest,” said Rowe. “So you had extremely tasty avocados that you couldn’t ship around the world and therefore they weren’t suited for live scale agriculture. But if you were to make a specific genetic change so that the flavor benefits you get, but you also retain the conventional longevity of this avocado on the shelf.”

But it’s not just helping food last longer, but also helping food survive as a crop.

“Think about all of these problems people are having with coffee,” said Rowe. “Coffee rust is a kinda of fungus that infects coffee plants. There’ s a big genetic component with that. if you make one genetic change within the coffee plant, the likelihood is, if you know what that change has to be, that you can stop that fungus infecting the coffee.

Whether it’s improving flavor, making food more nutritious, or helping it grow faster by speeding up the breeding process, CRISPR and genetic editing hold significant potential.  Rowe does a good job not only explaining these potential applications, but also explains CRISPR in language non scientists like myself (and probably most of our listeners) can understand.

To listen to Rowe talk CRISPR, you can listen to the latest episode of the Food Tech Show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, download direct to your device, or just click play below.