Charles Armstrong, Plastomics VP of Research and Development
Plastomics just hired Charles Armstrong Ph.D. as it’s new Vice President of Research and Development.
“He is an absolute corn transformation expert,” Plastomics CEO Martha Schlicher told the 4thEst8. “It’s really significant to get somebody of such experience, such stature, to leave the security of a job with Bayer to take the leap into Plastomics. I think it shows… his belief in how far we’ve come and the potential for what we’re doing.”
The Senior Bayer Science Fellow at Bayer Crop Science leaves a career with the company spanning more than 30 years to join the startup. But it isn’t like he doesn’t know what he’s taking on – Armstrong has been a long time Plastomics advisory board member and he worked closely with Plastomics founder Jeffrey Staub, Ph.D. before there was a Plastomics.
In addition to a 30 year career at Bayer, Armstrong is the recipient of many awards including the 2014 James B. Eads Award for his outstanding achievement in technology. That award is given by the Academy of Science – St. Louis.
Head count and real estate:
Plastomics has ten full time employees, up from seven, and a couple part time researchers for the summer. The company is moving this week from space generously afforded them at the Donald Danforth Plant Life Sciences to offices across the street at the Helix Center Biotech Incubator.
“Danforth has been really generous in letting us be in that space, which was never really designed for startup companies,” Schlicher said. The move gives them some room for expansion too. “They’re doing a great job over at Helix, of adding instrumentation and other services to help AG startups… We’ll have all the benefits of still being able to use greenhouses and growth chambers at Danforth and access to their researchers… across the street in space that’s attractive and affordable for startups like ours.”
Chloroplast technology
Plastomics is developing a new way to design crops by editing the chloroplast rather than the nucleus. They’re focusing on corn and soybean crops. The chloroplast is the organelle in the plant cell where photosynthesis happens, converting energy from the Sun into chemical energy. The approach has claimed advantages over current technology, which manipulates the cell nucleus, including no-outcrossing, faster development, and a higher expression of the desired trait.
Schlicher told the 4thEst8 in February the company is seeking out trait producers to apply some of those seed traits to their soybean platform. We reported the first such deal, with Evogene, in March. The plan is for Plastomics to supply seed companies with seeds that have been modified to carry advantageous traits and for the seed companies to sell those seeds to farmers. Some potential traits in the modified seeds could be fungal resistance, insect resistance and drought resistance.
Some history:
Plastomics was founded in 2016 by Jeffrey Staub and Ralph Bock, raised $2.2-million in seed funding, and an undisclosed venture round from TechAccel in 2018. Plastomics has also been funded by The Yield Lab, Biogenerator, St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, The Helix Fund, Missouri Technology Corporation and the St. Louis Arch Angels. Also in 2018, the company converted more than $2-million in debt.
Grants:
In May of 2020 the company landed an SBIR grant for $225,000 from the National Science Foundation, Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships to develop chloroplast engineering for maize (corn). That was followed in November by a grant of an undisclosed sum of money from the United Soybean Board to develop disease resistant soybeans. The company was also inducted into the Wells-Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) in the summer of 2020.
Links:
Helix Center Biotech Incubator
On the 4thEst8:
https://bizblip.com/strategic-partners-key-to-ceos-plan-for-product-commercialization/
