KULTEVAT, Inc — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.199999999999999

Description

Kultevat Inc. is a start-up company that aims to produce natural rubber from Taraxacum kok- saghyz (TKS) at scale and to achieve a price point that is attractive to customers in particular to USbased companies. To date the economics of growing TKS and extracting rubber from its roots at aprice point that is competitive with Hevea rubber has not been demonstrated. This project aims toapply biotechnology and genetic engineering to increase the size/biomass of pre-commercialvarieties of TKS with the goal to improve crop yield with resulting higher amounts of rubber and aco-product inulin. An RNAi gene silencing strategy will be used to reduce the activity of geneticrepressors that control plant flowering with the goal to delay flowering of TKS. This approach hasresulted in a 1-4 fold increase of biomass in crop plants in which it has been applied. Thetechnology referred to as Biomass Enhancement Technology was developed by PerformancePlants Inc. and soley licensed to Kultevat Inc. for use in TKS in North America. The immediategoal of this Phase I project is to use standard technology (e.g. Agrobacterium tumefaciensmediated gene transfer) to develop transgenic TKS plants that produce substantially increasedbiomass per plant and concomitant high amounts of rubber. Success will lead to future R&D todevelop a commercial variety for the US spawning a new US-based industry that will supplymarkets for natural rubber and inulin.