Benson Hill Biosystems and Danforth Plant Science Center Partner to Create Sustainable Sources of Bioenergy

Benson
Hill Biosystems, an agricultural technology company dedicated to
enhancing the sustainability of food, feed, fiber and fuel production,
today announced a partnership with the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center TERRA-REF program, which is funded by
the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Program.

The partnership will leverage ‘Breed’, an application powered by Benson
Hill’s CropOS
cloud biology platform, to advance the performance of feedstocks as an
alternative energy source through accelerating the development of
improved sorghum varieties.

“Leveraging ‘Breed’ in this partnership represents the convergence of
disciplines that we need in plant science to meet our global food and
energy goals,” said Jim Carrington, Ph.D., president of the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center. “This is a terrific example of what the
next generation of plant science will look like, and platforms like
CropOS will play a major role in helping us use rapidly expanding and
diverse data to deliver sustainable crop improvements.”

The DDPSC TERRA-REF project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), is a $30 million
initiative to develop and validate tools that support the rapid
innovation of new feedstock varieties, including sorghum, a
nutrient-dense, drought-tolerant crop used for ethanol, feed and food
production. The project will sequence more than 400 sorghum genomes and
capture tens of millions of phenotypic observations over the course of
each growing season, generating data at a rate of several terabytes per
day. This data will contribute to and leverage CropOS, Benson Hill
Biosystems’ cognitive engine that utilizes big data analytics and
machine learning capabilities to improve crop performance.

“Public-private sector partnerships are important elements for
accelerating innovation in crops that are essential to our bioenergy
vision,” said Joe Cornelius, the ARPA-E Program Director overseeing the
DDPSC project. “Partnerships provide our teams with access to
complementary tools and capabilities that amplify our efforts to develop
commercially relevant technologies and ensure that the learnings we are
generating will be impactful for the improvement of feedstocks to meet
our bioenergy goals.”

Benson Hill’s proprietary software application ‘Breed’ provides a simple
user interface for plant breeders and researchers across disciplines to
easily manage phenotypes, map networks, predict traits, and identify
high-performing crosses for advancement in a breeding program.

“We are pleased to join forces with this team of institutions and
researchers who, like our team at Benson Hill, are dedicated to boldly
innovating and tackling tall global challenges,” said Matthew Crisp, CEO
of Benson Hill Biosystems. “Creating sustainable, low-cost feedstock
crops will help secure energy independence and develop new forms of
bioenergy. It is a societal and environmental step forward to create new
market opportunities and private sector growth.”

About Benson Hill Biosystems

Benson Hill Biosystems is an agricultural technology company that
unlocks the global genetic potential of plants to enhance the
sustainability of food, feed, fiber and fuel production. Benson Hill and
our partners harness natural and novel genetic variation through
breeding, trait development, and genome editing to develop products that
accelerate crop improvement. More information can be found online at www.bensonhillbio.com.
Follow us on Twitter at @BensonHillBio.

About Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is a
not-for-profit research institute with a mission to improve the human
condition through plant science. Research, education and outreach aim to
have impact at the nexus of food security and the environment, and
position the St. Louis region as a world center for plant science. The
center’s work is funded through competitive grants from many sources,
including the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Energy,
National Science Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To
keep up to date with Danforth Center’s current operations and areas of
research, please visit, www.danforthcenter.org,
featuring information on Center scientists, news and the “Roots &
Shoots” blog. Follow us on Twitter at @DanforthCenter.

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