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Agricultural biotechnology startup Novin AgriTech has secured a grant worth $174,906 from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop advanced wheat traits aimed at improving nitrogen use efficiency and accelerating crop improvement.
The funding, awarded under the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I programme, will support an eight-month project focused on introducing improved genetic traits into elite wheat varieties.
Novin AgriTech, a Purdue University spin-off company, specialises in developing biotechnology tools for cereal crops such as wheat, barley, oat, and sorghum.
The company was co-founded by Mohsen Mohammadi, an associate professor of plant breeding and genetics in Purdue University’s Department of Agronomy and leader of the university’s soft red winter wheat breeding programme.
Mohammadi said the project will focus on improving nitrogen use efficiency in wheat, allowing crops to make better use of fertilisers while reducing production costs and environmental impact.
According to him, the company’s technology combines agricultural science with advanced genetic engineering systems designed to improve food security, crop resilience, and resource efficiency.
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The project will utilise two patented cereal crop transformation technologies developed by Mohammadi. These include InPACT, the company’s main platform technology, and a nanoparticle-assisted ultrasound gene delivery system.
The technologies allow scientists to directly modify elite wheat varieties without relying on traditional tissue culture methods, which are often expensive and time-consuming.
Mohammadi explained that the funding will help validate the company’s platform as a scalable and commercially viable solution for crop improvement.
He noted that successful completion of the project would demonstrate that the company’s transformation system can rapidly introduce important traits into commercially valuable wheat varieties.
The researcher added that the technology could later be expanded to other important agricultural traits, including drought tolerance, disease resistance, and resistance to environmental stress.
According to him, the project will also help speed up the company’s path toward commercialisation by identifying promising plant lines for future field trials within a short period.
Mohammadi said the project is expected to strengthen Novin AgriTech’s position in discussions with biotechnology firms, investors, and government agencies interested in agricultural innovation.
He added that the company recently entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the USDA to further advance its gene-editing and crop transformation technologies.
The company previously received support from the Purdue Innovates Trask Innovation Fund in 2023, which helped strengthen the research behind the InPACT technology and contributed to the launch of Novin AgriTech.
Purdue University’s Office of Technology Commercialization later secured patents for the inventions and licensed the technologies to the startup.
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Novin AgriTech said its long-term goal is to develop practical and scalable agricultural technologies capable of addressing food security challenges, improving crop resilience to heat and drought, and supporting sustainable farming systems worldwide.
