Food and agriculture have both been extremely exciting growth areas in synthetic biology as of late. Emerging and established companies have been addressing the need for more efficient and sustainable ways to grow crops and feed increasing populations.At next week’s London event,Prof. Paul Freemont from Imperial College London will be moderating a session solely focused on food and agriculture. Some of the pioneers of food sustainability will be talking about their food and flavor products and the technology platforms they’re using to create them.Highlighted speakers include Huw Jones, senior research scientist at Rothamsted Research, and Rachel Haurwitz, CEO of Caribou Biosciences, who will discuss genome editing in plants. Using CRISPR technology, Caribou is able to make precision changes to any genome, including those of plants. Caribou has recently raised $11 million in Series A funding, mostly for pharmaceutical development, but also for the additional exploration of agriculture as well.Jason King, CEO of Oxford Biotrans, and Stephan Herrera, Vice President of Evolva, will speak about making more sustainable flavorings. Oxford Biotrans has developed enzyme technology to produce nootkatone, the scent and flavor of grapefruit, while Evolva produces flavoring molecules like vanillin from bioengineered yeast rather than deriving them from petrochemicals like most synthetic vanilla flavoring.Brynne Stanton, a biological engineer at Ginkgo Bioworks will discuss Bioworks1, Ginkgo’s new 18,000-square foot organism foundry. The company recently closed a $9 million series A. Also, Antony Evans, the CEO of Glowing Plant, will be revealing the companies new plans to offer their service for plant engineering as a platform technology for those seeking a low cost way to enter the commercial market.

Bioworks1 is a new 18,000-square-foot facility that makes the process of designing microbes scalable, simpler and faster than ever before, and relies on 20 robots and advanced software. Source: Ginkgo Bioworks.Biotechnology in food and agriculture has been seen as a touchy subject many would rather avoid. But with dwindling arable land, drought and climate change, it’s a topic that cannot be ignored. Sustainability is a key topic in our resource starved planet.