Data-Powered Discovery: Transforming Crop Protection with ‘Omics’

SUMMARY: Syngenta’s new molecular techniques significantly accelerate the development of crop protection products. Traditionally, the journey from molecule discovery to a market-ready product could take up to 12 years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. By integrating ‘omics’ technologies—transcriptomics, metabolomics, cell painting, and proteomics—early in the development process, Syngenta can identify potential risks and optimize chemical structures much faster. This approach generates up to four million data points per molecule, allowing for quicker and more precise adjustments. Think of it like scouting a star athlete—rather than just knowing their height and weight, four million data points gives us their speed, strength, endurance, reaction time, and countless other metrics that together predict how they’ll perform in different situations. As a result, the time and cost of development are substantially reduced, ensuring safer products reach farmers more efficiently.

Even with advanced crop protection products, pests can develop resistance and new diseases can emerge, in a vicious feedback loop that threatens food security and producer profitability. Developing crop protection solutions typically takes up to 12 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, with significant risks as long-term safety studies come late in development.

But what if we could change the game entirely?

Syngenta scientists are changing this paradigm through a multi-million-dollar project using breakthrough technologies to evaluate molecular safety profiles early in development. This approach acts like a crystal ball, predicting a molecule’s future before committing extensive resources.

The four ‘omics’

The new technologies are known informally as ‘omics’.

First, transcriptomics offers a means of measuring the pattern of gene expression changes in a cell that result when the molecule interacts with it. Understanding this allows us to predict potential downstream consequences. We use breakthrough sequencing and processing approaches that allow for cost effective, high throughput analysis. This means researchers can assess large numbers of molecules far more quickly, speeding up the process of moving promising chemistry through development.

Next, metabolomics allows scientists to look at the chemical constituents of a cell, and any changes that occur in response to chemical treatment. This helps to identify potential concerns and select compounds with the most favorable, low-risk profile.

Cell painting is extremely detailed microscopy. Think of it like the world’s tiniest art studio, where scientists use molecular ‘paints’ to create a vivid and detailed portrait of a cell’s inner workings. This is equivalent to capturing a high-definition movie of cellular life rather than just a single snapshot.

Finally, proteomics allows scientists to know far more precisely what a molecule is doing when it interacts with a cell, and which parts of that cell are affected.

When used together, these techniques offer precise and unbiased insight into the impact a new molecule can have, right at the cellular level. In contrast to traditional methods of safety testing which can be expensive, time consuming and inefficient, and which depend upon having large quantities of a molecule to test, these techniques can be implemented right at the point of discovering what could well be a new active ingredient that protects crops.

This new technology allows for a colossal amount of data to be cross-referenced easily to form a holistic view of the behavior of a molecule and gain insights on any deviation from a ‘healthy’ profile.

As a result, Syngenta scientists are leading the way in using multiomics data at the earliest stages of molecular design, saving years of time and effort.

We are not just saving time and money, we are helping generate and optimize new chemistry that will get safer molecules to farmers faster than ever.

In the end it comes down to this: with farmers needing to keep pace with growing and evolving agricultural demand and still reckon with nature’s own evolutionary machine, humanity’s best hope lies in the brilliant minds and groundbreaking technologies pushing the boundaries of what is possible. The future of our agricultural systems depends on it.

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