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NEW GENE TECHNOLOGY SHOWN TO ENABLE PRODUCTION OF INDUSTRIAL OILS FROM A WIDER RANGE OF OIL-SEED CROPS
BTG , the global technology commercialisation company, today announced it will commercialise a new gene modification technology that uses a naturally-occurring plant gene to produce commercially valuable oils in soybean and other oil-seed crops. Developed at the University of British Columbia, the technology modifies the fatty acid composition of plants, which provides a higher percentage of oil suitable for industrial applications. While most vegetable oil is used in the food industry, inedible forms of vegetable oil are used in a number of applications including cosmetics, bio-fuels, lubricants, inks and certain plastics. This technology enables plants such as soybean to produce oils normally obtained from exotic crops such as jojoba. “This technology essentially allows plant-oil producers to increase dramatically the amounts of oil for non-food applications from crops such as soybean with an established, cost-efficient infrastructure”, said Robert Morrison, BTG’s Agribusiness Portfolio Manager. “Anyone in the industry will tell you that increasing output without increasing infrastructure is good business. The cost savings generated from this technology are considerable,” he continued. The technology enables the modification of seed-oil crops to produce increased levels of long chain fatty acids which are desired for many non-food applications. Jojoba, castor bean and industrial rape seed are all examples of crops which produce oil with long chain fatty acids in excess of 20 carbons. Soybeans are grown predominantly for food applications since the oil is usually comprised of fatty acids of only 18 carbons in length. Yet soybean oil is the cheapest plant oil produced in the US. Modification of soybean using the technology developed by the University of British Columbia provides the potential to decrease substantially the cost of producing plant oils for non-food applications.
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