A young Scottish firm that is developing technology to control genes has won a vote of confidence from a US chemical giant.
Synpromics said it had agreed an important collaboration deal with The Dow Chemical Company to develop the Edinburgh-based firm's technology for application in plant science.
Synpromics' chairman, David Lawrence, said the deal provided validation of the potential value to industry of the company's technology from a leading multinational.
The company said it aimed to develop a broad range of synthetic promoters that could be used to control gene activity in any cell or tissue type of interest.
It has started an initial proof of concept project with Dow's AgroSciences business to demonstrate the application of Synpromics' synthetic promoter technology in certain crops.
Dow AgroSciences said synthetic promoters had significant potential to accelerate the gene discovery and related product development processes in the agricultural industry.
"Technologies such as those developed by Synpromics can significantly enhance Dow AgroSciences' tool kit for developing improved crops," said Daniel R Kittle, vice-president, research ad development, Dow AgroSciences.
Synpromics' chief executive, Michael Roberts, said the company had formed a number of partnerships and was well placed to grow quickly.
With a degree in biochemistry from the University of Glasgow, Mr Roberts founded Synpromics in 2010 after heading the research and development department at the Regulon biotech business.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article