Bright Biotech, a Manchester-based biotech company, has been awarded £1 million from ARIA’s Synthetic Plants programme. The programme has a total budget of £62.4 million. This funding will support Bright Biotech’s research into plant-based bio-factories for animal-free proteins.
The company plans to use its advanced chloroplast technology to develop improved crop plants. These plants aim to be more productive, resilient, and sustainable. The goal is to help meet global food security challenges.
Bright Biotech is one of seven research and development teams selected by ARIA. The team will work on building, delivering, and maintaining improved chloroplasts and chromosomes in plants. These modifications can enable traits that are difficult to achieve with traditional gene editing methods.
The company will contribute its expertise in chloroplast genome biology. Its focus will be on enhancing water-use efficiency, reducing fertilizer dependence, and increasing disease resistance in crops.
Bright Biotech joins teams from institutions including University College London, the University of Tennessee, and MIT. The interdisciplinary team has over 60 years of combined experience in chloroplast synthetic biology.
Dr. Anil Day, CTO of Bright Biotech, expressed pride in joining the programme. He stated that programming new functions into chloroplasts could help address urgent global issues, such as food security and climate adaptation.
Beyond scientific goals, the programme emphasizes ethical and social considerations. ARIA aims for transparent, responsible innovation. Success could lead to drought-tolerant potatoes, nitrogen-fixing wheat, and plants that produce industrial compounds sustainably.
