NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Two Blades Foundation has granted Syngenta access to its genome engineering technology for commercial uses in certain crop plants under an agreement announced late on Tuesday.
The non-exclusive license provides Syngenta access to the Transcription Activator Like (TAL) effector Code, a technology for engineering proteins that bind to specific DNA sequences for precise modulation of genomes.
Syngenta will have an option to expand its crop rights in the future, and will grant Two Blades access to improvements it may make to the technology. TAL enables tools such as designer TAL effectors for targeted gene activation or repression; targeted genome engineering; and site-specific gene insertion, Two Blades said.
The technology was developed by researchers at the Institute of Biology at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. Evanston, Ill.-based Two Blades, a not-for-profit corporation seeking to develop durable disease resistance in agricultural crops, holds the exclusive rights to commercial use of TAL Code technology in plants.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.