2Blades is pleased to announce a collaboration with the Plant Innovation Center of Japan Tobacco and researchers at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich.  

JT will contribute its high efficiency wheat transformation technology to support 2Blades’ and TSL’s efforts to deliver durable resistance to major diseases of wheat, a crop which yields 20% of the world’s protein and calories.  2Blades’ Chair, Dr. Roger Freedman, said “We are delighted to be working with JT to advance 2Blades’ wheat program. Their high efficiency transformation technology will enable us to accelerate our efforts to deliver new sources of resistance to the wheat diseases which are a major constraint on production of this important crop.”  Mr. Yuki Maeda, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and IT of JT, stated “We are honored to work with 2Blades and TSL, who are responsible for some of the world’s best research on plant diseases, to accelerate their efforts to deliver durable resistance to wheat diseases through our expertise in transformation.”　

 

About 2Blades: The 2Blades Foundation, based in Evanston, Illinois, is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to the discovery, advancement, and delivery of durable disease resistance in crops. 2Blades establishes and manages development programs addressing significant unsolved crop disease problems in collaboration with leading research institutions around the world and at the 2Blades Group in The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK. 2Blades manages a portfolio of specific traits and enabling technologies that it implements in its own programs and out-licenses for broad use. Visit the 2Blades website at www.2blades.org and follow 2Blades on twitter at @2blades.

 

About Japan Tobacco: Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT) is a leading international tobacco company with operations in more than 130 countries. With close to 60,000 employees, it manufactures and sells some of the world’s best-known brands including Winston and Camel. The JT Group is also present in the pharmaceutical and processed food businesses.

JT has a world leading plant biotechnology platform, especially in monocotyledonous crops such as wheat and corn.  JT’s plant biotechnology business is independently managed from its core businesses including the domestic and international tobacco, pharmaceutical and processed food businesses.  JT does not apply this technology to our product development conducted within those businesses.

 

About The Sainsbury Laboratory: The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a world-leading research centre focusing on making fundamental discoveries about plants and how they interact with microbes. TSL not only provides fundamental biological insights into plant-pathogen interactions, but is also delivering novel, genomics-based, solutions which will significantly reduce losses from major diseases of food crops, especially in developing countries. TSL is an independent charitable company and receives strategic funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation with the balance coming from competitive grants and contracts from a range of public and private bodies, including the European Union (EU), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and commercial and charitable organisations. www.tsl.ac.uk.