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Glowing Plant Is One of Y Combinator’s First Biotech Startups
- technotony 12y agoI'm one of the founders of this project, and will be available to answer any questions you have.
- lliwta 12y agoWhat general techniques are you using? Perhaps another way to put it: which Wikipedia article is most related to your methodology?
- technotony 12y agoWe use a broad range of technologies: 1. We start with protein engineering to improve the function of the enzymes which make the glowing reaction. We are using a process called directed evolution to achieve this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_evolution 2. Then we recode the genes coding for our enzymes so that they can be read by plants - here we test a large number of combinations. This uses a whole suite of technologies: Genome Compiler software to design the sequence, DNA synthesis of the parts, DNA assembly using transcriptics and then transient experiments to test the DNA sequence in plants as described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroinfiltration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroinfiltration 3. Finally when we have a DNA sequence which is working well we insert that into the plant germline (so that it's inheritable) using a gene gun:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun
- micro_cam 12y agoHow much control does the gene gun process give you over where the new sequence ends up? Is it in the same place in all of your production seeds or do they structurally differ? I guess a related question is if all the seeds come from one ancestor cell where the insertion was done or if you do the insertion multiple times? (I work with human genetics and am fascinated by the prevalence of structural variation.)
- technotony 12y agoThe gene gun inserts randomly. We do a large number of insertions and will then test to see which are the best plants and take those forward to production. All the seeds shipped will however come from a single parent.
- Axsuul 12y agoHow bright is the glow?
- technotony 12y agoAt the moment it's comparable to glow-in-the-dark paint, imagine those stars many people had on their ceiling as kids. we are working on improving the luminosity however, we are improving it about 10-25% per week using a process known as directed evolution.
- aetherson 12y agoAren't there some pretty fundamental physical limits here? This wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb claims that the luminous efficiency of a low-wattage incandescent bulb is maybe in the neighborhood of 1%. So that suggests that to get as much light as a 25 watt incandescent bulb, assuming that your plant is perfectly converting input energy to light output, you'd need to be continuously burning 0.25 watts. Can a plant possibly metabolize or store that much energy for long?
- technotony 12y agoBioluminescense is known as cold-light because it's so efficient - basically zero energy is wasted as heat. There will be fundamental limits (currently unknown), most likely from toxicity or waste products hurting the cells, but we are far from pushing those boundaries yet.
- dekhn 12y agoRight, but a good first order estimate woudl be to take the brighest bioluminenscent molecule, pack it in a sphere with volume = your plant, and compute lux at 3 meters. Or something like that. Without growing lensing structures or other ways to focus/point light, the r3 falloff is gonna kill you.
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- kayhi 12y agoCongrats! Send Kyle a high five for us, it's been awesome watching your progress!
- stonemetal 12y agoWhat plants are you working with? Are they pet and kid safe? Even at your current brightness levels it could make a cool nightlight for kids, as long as it doesn't kill them or the cat.
- technotony 12y agoWe work with Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis is not very tasty but is not toxic either.
- highCs 12y agoDo you have pictures of glowing plants? (just been able to see 2 lowres photos so far)
- technotony 12y agoHere you go (note this is a 30 second exposure): http://cdn.optimizely.com/img/536610845/38f49c2ac92c415d824b8c28816f2ccd.png http://cdn.optimizely.com/img/536610845/38f49c2ac92c415d824b...
- dnautics 12y agoIs that with or without luciferin added?
- viggity 12y agois your plant hybridized, or do you plan on developing hybrids to increase vigor after you've gotten the glow bright enough? You said elsewhere that you're increasing brightness 10-25% per week, which seems crazy fast. How fast do your plants reach maturity?
- technotony 12y agoIncreased luminosity per week comes from protein engineering the pathways in bacteria. We then test those improvements in plant leaves, which takes about four weeks, before inserting the full DNA in a plant which is the slow part which takes 6 months.
- seszett 12y agoWill you eventually ship seeds overseas?
- technotony 12y agoWe certainly hope so. Due to the divergence of regulations in different countries it will be on a country by country basis, most likely starting with Canada and Asia.
- kourt 12y agoHow do you guarantee that this DNA will not get released into the wild, and what is your responsibility for the consequences if it does?
- sampo 12y ago> How do you guarantee that this DNA will not get released into the wild, and what is your responsibility for the consequences if it does? Don't be silly. It's only in movies that monsterous mutations appear. What consequences could this kind of useless, extra metabolical burden (luminescence) have? It would quickly disappear in nature.
- johnpmayer 12y agoHonestly I wouldn't be upset if the truth was none and none. May as well be happening in the open. edit: If I got these I'd be breeding it with all sorts of other close species; see what sticks.
- api 12y agoNot the op, but I have an answer to this. This plant is wasting energy by glowing. It serves no purpose that enhances the plant's fitness outside of a human environment. If it were released into the wild, chances are it would lose out in natural selection vs wild competitors. The same is true of most human domesticated species, most of which are effectively genetically engineered through ages of selective breeding. Picture dogs vs wolves, cows vs wild buffalo, etc.
- technotony 12y agoExactly, the plant is not being given any kind of selective advantage and the genes in fact incur a metabolic cost on the plant so it will lose out to natural selection. The domesticated analogy is a great one, plus remember we took the genes from the wild in the first place!
- gone35 12y agoExactly, (...) Seriously? As the CEO of the company and the person ultimately responsible for this project, it is troubling that you endorse these simplistic and erroneous views of plant biosafety. Fitness is notoriously ecosystem-dependent and hard to predict, which is why microcosm and field experiments-based risk assessments exist in the first place --it unfortunately can't just be eyeballed from a simple metabolic account like that. And either way there is the additional risk of transgene flow, which is even more long-term and less understood --especially for such relatively distant horizontal transfers. You might have (unaccountably) skirted APHIS regulation, but that doesn't mean you don't have an ethical obligation to (1) thoroughly assess the biosafety of these plants; and (2) be frank in communicating these risks (and their uncertainty) to the public, even if they do not make as clean of a narrative as one would like.
- craigyk 12y agoI've wanted to do this since I saw a picture of a glowing tobacco plant in my biology textbook back in 1995. I've since done quite a bit of research on it, and there are some pretty serious obstacles. I assume you want to use luciferase... are you going to insert the whole enzymatic pathway? or sell "glowing plant fuel"? How do you get around the fact that this uses quite a bit of the plant's energy? Are you planning on attaching promoters that hack into the plant's day/night cycle? or seasonal changes?
- Alex3917 12y agoFor what it's worth, it's trivially easy to grow your own bioluminescent fungi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bioluminescent_fungi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bioluminescent_fungi They don't last as long as the plants, but if you get the right ones then you can eat them once you're done.
- simonebrunozzi 12y agoHey - if you are in the Bay Area, I'd like to see them in person. simone brunozzi at gggmmail.
- pcrh 12y agoThis seems a bit gimmicky, how does Glowing Plant thnk it's business will fare compared to Glofish? http://www.glofish.com/ http://www.glofish.com/
- technotony 12y agoWe are in touch with the Glofish founders, their business is doing well and they are in thousands of retails stores. The biggest difference though is that we have a very strong technical team who can continue to develop and improve our products, Glofish licenses from an academic research group. Like a software business this is a rapidly evolving technology so its important to have technical co-founders - YC obviously understands this!
- pcrh 12y agoI'd like to see this in a plant like a climbing rose. It would be very neat to cover a trellis, gazebo, or something similar!
- SixSigma 12y agoI think people are more sensitive to having GM animals, which is kind of irrational when compared to the hideous monsters selective breeding has generated in goldfish. I'd never have a glofish but I'd buy a plant in a heartbeat. I'd guess you'd sell a lot of these through retail on impulse, just like carnivorous plants - kids get dragged to the DIY superstore and walk away with a pacifying plant.
- zafka 12y agoThis is pretty cool tech! I kicked in quite a while ago, and am still waiting for my seeds. While I grumbled a bit, I was given a chance to vote for spending more time for higher quality--which I did. I am looking forward to when I have more time to work on things like this.
- technotony 12y agoOne of the things YC has encouraged us to do is ship early, so we are now going to ship twice to our Kickstarter backers - you'll get an early prototype and then version 2.0 as well. Looking forward to sharing our progress with you!
- zafka 12y agoSweet! I just bought 5 acres in South Florida where I plan to have a combo art center/research playhouse with greenhouses and different solar systems. The glow in the dark plants will be a nice accent.
- knodi 12y agoI funded this project on kickstart. Can't wait to get the seeds.
- sanj 12y agoJust bought a seed packet. Very cool! Will the plants produce seeds? Reproduce? Will the glow genes reappears in successive generations?
- technotony 12y agoThank you! The seeds are fertile and will retain the glow for a few generations at least (eventually evolution will turn it off due to the metabolic cost on the plant).
- bdonlan 12y agoUnless you selectively cultivate them for luminescence, right?
- claudiowilson 12y agoI'm interested to see the reactions this will garner from the anti-GMO crowd.
- technotony 12y agoThe usual suspects are of course against this, but one of the reasons we started the company was to change public perception around GMOs. The technology has enormous potential to help the world, but it's being held back by public opinion. What's frustrating is that this opinion is basically not based on science or evidence, but is mobilized because people are against things like biotech patents and large companies dominating the food chain. The glowing plant changes that discussion and we hope that people develop a more nuanced and balanced perspective once they have a GMO in their own home.
- claudiowilson 12y agoI can definitely see the potential for greatness that GMOs have. I'm really glad that you're trying to change the misguided public perception around them.
- SixSigma 12y agoPlus it is harder to tell your kids they can't have glow in the dark plants than GMO food.
- dasmoth 12y agoI fear I know the answer to this already but just on the off chance -- is there any possibility these might be sold in Europe in the foreseeable future?
- technotony 12y agoForeseeable future yes, near future no I'm afraid. EU regulations require monitoring of every one of our plants which works for GMO's in fields (but is costly!) but is untenable for a consumer product. I'm optimistic the rules will change one day!
- fred_durst 12y agoDo mean that EU regulations require you to monitor the plants once you sell them? Possibly to prevent an enterprising young man from planting 1,000s of these in the woods behind his house in order to have the coolest rave ever?
- technotony 12y agoThat's exactly what they require unfortunately. You have to know where they are planted and monitor the other plants in the area around them, obviously impossible for a consumer product!
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jqm 12y agoThis is really cool. I can't wait to see what the next several decades bring in this space.
- stillsut 12y agoWhat role did the DIYbio community play in fertilizing your business? What role do you see that community playing in future 'non-trad' bio-tech start-ups?
- technotony 12y agoThe founders met at Biocurious, a DIY Bio space in Sunnyvale, and many of our early backers came from that community. It's also a key influence behind us offering the DNA open source and behind offering the maker kit so that others can do their own plant engineering. DIY Bio means many things to many people, eg education, community, fun, but I personally see it as the foundation for entrepreneurs launching such businesses.
- al2o3cr 12y agoKickstarter backer here. Have you considered teaming up with another KS project (Click and Grow)? They've got a neat "self-watering" plant setup: http://www.clickandgrow.com/smartpot http://www.clickandgrow.com/smartpot
- ck2 12y agoIt's all fun and games until a pet decides to eat it and gets sick or worse.