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HomePosts Tagged "Ph.D."
Agbiologicals, Agribusiness, Company News, Herbicides, North America

U.S. EPA approved an amendment to the label of INTERLINE herbicide to include Camelina.

Yield10 Bioscience, Inc., an agricultural bioscience company, announced that UPL Ltd.  has received U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) approval to amend the label language of INTERLINE® Herbicide to include the oilseed Camelina sativa (“Camelina”). This approval allows Yield10’s glufosinate-tolerant Camelina to be sprayed with INTERLINE®, a glufosinate containing herbicide, providing farmers with a much-needed method to control broad leaf weeds during Camelina field production. INTERLINE is marketed and sold by UPL, a global provider of sustainable agricultural solutions.

Camelina, a member of the Brassicaceae plant family, is available in both spring and cold-tolerant winter varieties. Use of the Camelina crop is currently ramping up commercially in North America as a potential source of feedstock oil for the biofuel industry. Yield10 is also progressing commercial development of Camelina as a potential platform crop for producing new seed products including engineered omega-3 oils for use in human nutrition, animal feed and aquaculture.

“We appreciate the efforts of the UPL team to add Camelina to the INTERLINE herbicide label,” said Kristi Snell, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer and Vice President of Research of Yield10. “Having methods to control broad-leaf weeds is essential to enabling the large-scale adoption of Camelina as a commercial crop in North America. Yield10 has engineered both spring and winter varieties of Camelina for glufosinate tolerance. We anticipate that INTERLINE will give Camelina farmers access to a widely used herbicide solution that supports farm profitability and crop health.”

Yield10 is a leader in the development of Camelina, including glufosinate-tolerant varieties. USDA-APHIS’s Biotechnology Regulatory Services (“BRS”) determined in November 2023 that Yield10’s glufosinate tolerant Camelina is not subject to regulation under 7 CFR part 340 regulations after the Company submitted a Regulatory Status Review Request (“RSR”) under the SECURE Rule. This ruling allows Yield10’s glufosinate tolerant varieties to be grown and bred in the United States. The recent EPA label amendment allows growers to spray INTERLINE on glufosinate tolerant Camelina varieties in the US under state registrations.

U.S. EPA approved an amendment to the

Agribusiness, Agrotech, Animal Health, Collaborations, Company News, R&D

Blacksmith and Zoetis will collaborate to discover and develop novel antibiotics to selectively target bacteria for animal health.

Blacksmith Medicines, Inc. (Blacksmith), a leading biopharma dedicated to discovering and developing medicines targeting metalloenzymes, and Zoetis, the world’s leading animal health company, announced a collaboration to discover and develop novel antibiotics for animal health.

“According to authorities including the FDA, CDC, WHO, WOAH, and EMA, antibiotic resistance can spread between animals and humans, and this is particularly devastating for antibiotics that are the last line of treatment for critical infections in people.  Blacksmith and Zoetis will collaborate to discover and develop novel antibiotics to selectively target bacteria for animal health,” said Zachary Zimmerman, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Blacksmith.  “This new collaboration is another example of Blacksmith’s creative deal-making with top tier partners that bring expertise to the table which helps de-risk and accelerate scientific discoveries for the development of valuable products.”

“As part of our commitment to reduce the dependency on antibiotic classes shared with human health, we are pleased to leverage our veterinary expertise along with our extensive collection of pathogens in this collaboration with Blacksmith,” said Dr Jeff Watts, Research Director, External Innovation at Zoetis. “Through our research, we aim to ultimately provide new options for our customers to treat life-threatening infections in livestock.”

About metalloenzymes and the Blacksmith platform

Metalloenzymes utilize a metal ion cofactor in the enzyme active site to perform essential biological functions.  This diverse class of targets has historically been difficult to drug due to small molecule chemistry limitations that have plagued the industry.  The Blacksmith metalloenzyme platform has solved this problem by leveraging the following:

  • A large proprietary fragment library of metal-binding pharmacophores (MBPs);
  • A comprehensive database containing a full characterization of the metalloenzyme genome including functions, metal cofactors, and associations to disease;
  • A first-of-its-kind metallo-CRISPR library of custom single guide RNAs;
  • An industry-leading metalloenzyme computational toolkit for docking, modeling and structure-based drug design; and
  • A robust and blocking intellectual property estate covering bioinorganic, medicinal, and computational chemistry approaches for metalloenzyme-targeted medicines.

Blacksmith and Zoetis will collaborate to discover