Stakeholder Engagement Update

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CHIC is the Chicory Innovation Consortium. The project’s main objectives are 1) to implement New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) in chicory in order to establish it as a multipurpose crop for the production of health-related products with clear benefits for consumers, and 2) to develop co-innovation pathways with stakeholders for game-changing technologies, such as NPBTs.

The overall objective of Work Package 6 (WP6) is to engage stakeholders in achieving a more responsible innovation process.

Specific objectives are:

  • To identify facilitating and possibly hindering factors for chicory innovation from various stakeholder viewpoints
  • To assess stakeholder acceptability of alternative chicory commercialisation scenarios
  • To identify management options to better harness the benefits and mitigate possible negative impacts

Updates

The overall objective of the WP6 is to engage stakeholders for better aligning technology innovation with societal needs, which includes the identification of possibly facilitating and hindering factors and the assessment of stakeholder acceptability of commercial development of genome-edited chicory and derived products (inulin and/or terpenes).

An in-depth analysis of the Stakeholder Consultations was carried out in WPs 4 and 5. The results from those work packages were then integrated into the research instruments used in WP6. The development is organised as a multi-step participative process involving all project partners, the Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG), and external stakeholders. Several steps involving partners and the SAG were achieved and further steps involving external stakeholders were prepared. Further development of and continued interaction with the Stakeholder Advisory Group was performed. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing restrictions (an unforeseen risk) had an impact on the project activities as planned stakeholder consultations could not be held in person. The transformation of these events into virtual-only events required considerable effort but worked out well in the end.

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Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts on the Whole Value Chain Update

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CHIC is the Chicory Innovation Consortium. The project’s main objectives are 1) to implement New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) in chicory in order to establish it as a multipurpose crop for the production of health-related products with clear benefits for consumers, and 2) to develop co-innovation pathways with stakeholders for game-changing technologies, such as NPBTs.

The overall objectives of Work Package 5 (WP5) are to evaluate the socio-economic and environmental impacts on the whole value chain. Specific objectives are:

  • To obtain consistent characteristics and data set of whole value chain
  • To perform a socio-economic impact assessment of NPBTs and the whole value chain to gain knowledge about growth, job creation, distribution, competitiveness, value chains
  • To perform an environmental assessment of NPBTs and the whole value chain in comparison to conventional reference systems
  • To analyse societal issues facilitating or hindering chicory innovation

Updates

WP5 is tasked with evaluating socio-economic and environmental impacts on the whole value chain of the newly developed chicory crops. Therefore, a socio-economic impact assessment and an environmental assessment of NPBTs and the whole value chain will be performed. In addition to these quantitative assessments, qualitative research on societal issues hindering or facilitating chicory innovation will be applied.

Within the socio-economic assessment, the impact of different NPBTs on economic and social indicators will be quantified such as GDP, production volume, growth, competitiveness, and employment as well as the distribution of wealth and income between different sectors and regions within the EU and the global economy. The LCA will give information on e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, primary energy demand, water consumption, land use of the new value chain developed in CHIC. With broad input by all partners, concepts were defined that differ in aspects such as whether CRISPR edited chicory is regulated as GMO or not, whether it is grown in the open field or greenhouses, and what type of products are isolated from them. These concepts will be evaluated for their socio-economic and environmental impacts.

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Augmented Reality Educational Game for the Young Generation!

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Gene editing, or genome editing, is a process in which small intended changes in the DNA are introduced in the genome of a living organism such as plants.

An augmented reality game was created to allow young adults to learn more about the CHIC project and the genome editing on plants. MyChicFarm is an educational Augmented Reality game developed by DEI Lab at UC3M to learn about New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs).

For instance, one can use gene-editing techniques to improve the amount of healthy terpenes or inulin food fibres in chicory by choosing carefully which gene to target with by the CRISPRCas9 enzyme to make the cut in the double-stranded DNA chain.

Do you want your children’s school to try these interactive games? Please click below to learn more!

CLICK HERE!

The game allows players (farmers) to grow chicory crops and make the most of their seed money using Microsoft Hololens glasses. Selected seeds have to be planted, grown, and then collect and sell them to the market. Farmers must defend the plantations from plagues attack. To ensure the quality of the next crop, players can invest part of their money in NPBTs and produce health-related products such as inulin and terpenes.

The game has been developed within the context of the CHIC Project supported through the EU Horizon 2020 funding programme.

To view the full version, please click below.

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Technical, Risk, and Regulatory Assessment of NPBTs Update

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CHIC is the Chicory Innovation Consortium. The project’s main objectives are 1) to implement New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) in chicory in order to establish it as a multipurpose crop for the production of health-related products with clear benefits for consumers, and 2) to develop co-innovation pathways with stakeholders for game-changing technologies, such as NPBTs.

The overall objective of Work Package 4 (WP4) is to address the technical assessment, risk assessment, and regulatory assessment of NPBTs. Specific objectives are:

  • To perform technical efficiency analysis of the four conceptually different NPBTs for chicory
  • To identify off-target activities (OTA) caused by the application of NPBTs in chicory
  • To evaluate possible negative effects of the chicory compounds
  • To provide guidance for the risk assessment of NPBTs
  • To monitor and compare regulatory regimes concerning NPBTs

Updates

The aims of WP4 are the assessment of technical, regulatory, and safety aspects of the four conceptional different new plant breeding methods used in the project and the chicory plants and substances produced by those plants. This work package is divided into five individual tasks:

  • Task 4.1 deals with the efficiency analysis of the four conceptional different NPBTs.
  • Task 4.2 focuses on the assessment of Off-targets in the genome-edited chicory plants, both tasks contribute to the technical assessment. During the reporting period a current guide RNA has been used to generate chicory plants which each of the conceptional different NPBTs, plants have been generated for all of them (stable, FLP-system, RNP, and Plasmid delivery). Additionally, also Off-targets for the common guide RNA have been assessed and tested in first screens which need further validation.
  • Task 4.3 and 4.5 assess the regulatory aspects of NPBTs, due to the ECJ ruling the risk assessment of products derived by genome editing is currently the same as for GMOs in Europe but discussions are ongoing.
  • Regulatory regimes all around the world are working on genome editing or novel legislation to be adapted. In many countries e.g. Russia and India, discussions are still ongoing and opinions are being collected and the first publication on this issue has been released recently.
  • Task 4.4. deals with the safety assessment of products derived by genome-edited chicory. During the current reporting period, terpene samples were tested for cytotoxicity using human intestinal epithelial cells. Good progress has been made so far and further improvement will be done in the next period.
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Implementation of NPBT in Chicory for Bioactive Terpenes Update

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CHIC is the Chicory Innovation Consortium. The project’s main objectives are 1) to implement New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) in chicory in order to establish it as a multipurpose crop for the production of health-related products with clear benefits for consumers, and 2) to develop co-innovation pathways with stakeholders for game-changing technologies, such as NPBTs.

The overall objective of Work Package 3 (WP3) is to explore the potential of laticifers and sesquiterpene lactone biosynthesis for improved or new chicory products. Specific objectives are:

  • • To produce costunolide in chicory root by inactivation of late steps of the terpene biosynthesis pathway
  • • To produce parthenolide in chicory root by cytochrome P450 engineering
  • • To study and modulate the laticifer network of chicory root for optimised terpene storage
  • • To assay the bioactivity of chicory terpenes

Updates

The latex of chicory contains large amounts of sesquiterpene lactones, which interfere with the extraction of inulin. In this work package, one of the objectives is to identify biological activities of interest for these sesquiterpene lactones and to increase their production by using new plant breeding technologies. Bioactivity assays identified one promising sesquiterpene lactone with anti-inflammatory activity and extracts containing antimicrobial activity, for which the responsible substances are being identified. Using transcriptome data and the newly sequenced genome, candidate genes for the biosynthesis of the sesquiterpene lactones and the formation of the laticifers have been identified and are being functionally characterized.

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