CoverCress Inc. and University Partners Selected as Start-up Inventor of the Year

In Missouri, CoverCress Inc. and its university partners Illinois State University and the University of Minnesota were selected as the Start-up Inventor of the Year by the Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Section of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL).

This award reflects the use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology, which was awarded the 2020 Noble Prize in Chemistry, to domesticate and convert a native weed species, pennycress, into an improved quality product that has been branded as CoverCress and is targeted for corn and soybean farmers in the southern Midwest.  This new cash oilseed crop will enable farmers to grow an extra crop over winter between a traditional corn harvest and planting soybeans on what would otherwise be fallow ground.

CoverCress Inc. will have its first pilot commercial planting in the fall of 2021 following a near decade of research and development.