Landry, pictured in her lab, was one of three researchers to receive the award
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS) at the University of California (UC) have announced the inaugural recipients of the 2024 CITRIS Innovation Fellowship and AIC Awards.
Among them was Markita Landry, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry. Her winning project, nanotechnologies for rapid crop bioengineering, explores how bioengineering can boost a plant’s nutritional value, enhance a crop’s yield and increase the food system’s climate resilience. However, the challenge is that developing a single genetically modified crop can take more than a decade and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Seeking to streamline the expensive and time-intensive process, this project investigates multiple nanotechnology strategies to precisely and seamlessly deliver nucleic acids and proteins to plant germline tissue. These methods would allow scientists to correct genetic disorders and introduce desirable traits at the earliest stage of development at a fraction of the time and cost.
The project will also explore the commercialization of cell-penetrating peptide tools, especially if the technologies prove effective for delivering proteins to microspores, an essential cell for fertilization in plants such as corn, rice and wheat.
Launched in partnership with the Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC), the program turns faculty-developed research into viable commercial solutions for society’s biggest challenges. Recipients receive up to $200,000 over two years to commercialize their innovations, along with support from AIC and the CITRIS Foundry incubator. The program received more than 65 entries from across CITRIS’s four campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz, with over half of the submissions addressing climate solutions or AI for the public good. The three winning proposals tackle issues of critical concern across the globe: developing climate-resilient agricultural systems, advancing crop engineering to enhance food security, and safeguarding essential infrastructure and sensitive data through breakthroughs in cybersecurity.