Development of crop plants that can withstand drought and salt stresses is at the forefront of plant science-based scientific endeavors. Genetic modification-based approaches have shown the potential to develop such plants, however, inherent complications and lack of wide spread acceptability of GMO foods hinder advancement. A transformative idea would be to regulate environmental stress responses in crop plants by applying fertilizer-like small compounds. In this proposal, the team has developed a series of potentially valuable agrichemicals that should help with drought tolerance, so there could be very substantial commercial potential for the products.
The PI and his team have isolated dozens of small compounds targeting the functional domain of a well characterized scaffold protein RACK1A in the model plant Arabidopsis. One of the compounds- SD29 has shown to confer drought/salt stress resistance in the model plant Arabidopsis. In addition preliminary studies have shown that it protects under other stress conditions as well. Another compound developed can enable crop plants to maintain photosynthesis even under environmental stresses like drought/salt stresses. Considering the global climate change and effort to increase biomass for biofuel production, the proposed chemical compounds have great potential to contribute in many economic and environmental fronts. The successful demonstration of this new RACK1 inhibitors chemical provides safe and effective protection against damage to crops in drought/salty conditions.
Drought is increasingly a global problem. Considering the growing global population and the increasing need for food, drought is acting as a tremendous impediment to crop yields and thereby exacerbating the food safety. Currently there is no efficient technology available for drought conditions, and salinity. We have developed some small compounds that functionally inhibit a negative regulator protein of drought stress resistance pathway in crops. The NSF I-CORPS grant allowed us to get trained in the holistic approach of customer discovery for this new technology. When we started, we only knew one value proposition of our product (it protects plants from drought and salinity) and one potential customer segment (farmers). However, through the excellent training and extensive course works, we have expanded our market horizon beyond the initial limited potential area. Through 110 direct customer interviews, our team now has been able to recognize the expanded customer base including both the food and non-food sectors. In addition, the training made us appreciate the role of the Distribution Channels, Pricing that have eventually helped us in the elucidation of our Business model. The model helped us in recognizing all the key components of a successful start-up business entity. Specifically, we were able to recognize our key customers, key activities, specific customer segments, value propositions, Channels, key resources, and revenue streams. The most important aspect of this training is our current ability to identify the hidden competitors for this technology. When we started the class, to launch a startup, the most important thing we thought was building a high profile team with an innovative idea. But what we feel now, is building a business model through the customer discovery is an important component of any successful scalable start up. The final outcome of the training is summarized by two youtube videos found here: http://youtu.be/YkTlwWrVGGo http://youtu.be/dRlChbB4EBs We as scientists when started this project of customer discovery for our products, we did not know any functional knowledge about developing a start-up company. However, with all these marketing tools and training, we now proudly own a start-up company- Cropgenics.com. Through this training, we are confident that we will be able to advance the technology to a significant level.
