The Future of Agriculture

New Hampshire Union Leader: UNH researcher to develop new gene-editing tools

September 2, 2020 by admin

A researcher at the University of New Hampshire has received a USDA grant to develop new gene editing tools that could help scientists unravel how certain bacteria promote growth in plants and protect them from environment stress.

According to a UNH news release, the tools are a critical step in better understanding the dynamics of bacteria-plant interactions that benefit plants and crops, and could advance global efforts to clean contaminated soils, reduce pollution, and tolerate salt in soil.

Read more here.

BARDA, Department of Defense, and SAb Biotherapeutics to Partner to Develop a Novel COVID-19 Therapeutic

April 6, 2020 by admin

Published by Medical Counter Measures

A therapeutic to treat novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is moving forward in development through a partnership between BARDA, the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense (JPEO – CBRND), and SAb Biotherapeutics, Inc. (SAb), of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Using an interagency agreement with JPEO’s Medical CBRN Defense Consortium, BARDA transferred approximately $7.2 million in funding to (JPEO – CBRND) to support SAb to complete manufacturing and preclinical studies, with an option to conduct a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Read the full press release here.

Agri-Pulse: Can cows be used to fight coronavirus?

March 30, 2020 by admin

Bovine plasma donors genetically engineered to produce human antibodies are in the front lines of the struggle against coronavirus.

SAB Biotherapeutics, a Sioux Falls, S.D., biotechnology company that has been successfully testing use of antibodies from cows to fight diseases such as another coronavirus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, now is engaged in developing a treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Read the full article here.