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Flagship Pioneering—the biotech firm that founded Moderna—has launched a new company called Terrana Biosciences to spray crops with RNA designed to “actually go inside the plant,” move through its internal systems, persist under extreme environmental conditions, and become “heritable across plant generations,” using synthetic RNA constructs generated from “a vast library of RNAs” built with “advanced AI and computational models.”Flagship Pioneering was originally founded as NewcoGen in 1999 by Noubar Afeyan and Ed Kania.Afeyan, as founder and CEO and co-founder of Moderna, has established significant collaborations with U.S. government agencies such as NIAID, HHS, BARDA, FDA, and Operation Warp Speed, notably contributing to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine development.News of Moderna’s new crop-spraying technology comes as EcoHealth Alliance’s DEFUSE proposal to DARPA is under renewed scrutiny for detailing plans to aerosolize chimeric coronavirus spike proteins, immune modulators, and self-spreading vaccines over humans using drones.Those technologies were developed before the COVID pandemic, raising the question of whether the pandemic marked the covert launch of a premeditated biological spray operation—one that tested drone-based aerosol delivery of COVID-related substances on human populations under the guise of a global health emergency. ...
... Genetically programming crops with synthetic RNA sprays designed to persist in plant tissue. ...What could go wrong?
Flagship Pioneering, biotech company headed by the co-founder of Moderna (manufacturer of the mRNA Covid vaccines), along with other prominent figures with backgrounds in big-pharmaceutical and big-agricultural sectors, have launched a new biotech firm called Terrana Biosciences, with the goal of spraying crops with the same RNA technology used in Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines. The technology can alter the gene expression of the crops that are sprayed and becomes hereditary in the plants themselves. The company believes this latest innovation will help deal with climate change.“Think of it like software,” CEO Ryan Rapp explained. “You can stick a floppy disk or USB drive into the computer and give it a set of instructions. This is the first time we’ve had a platform where we can actually do this in plants.”This language echoes similar language used when Moderna launched their mRNA vaccines in 2020, describing the technology as an “operating system,” a “program” or “app,” and the “software of life.” ...Terrana reveals that their technology will permanently alter the genetic code of these plants and will pass on those traits for plant generations thereafter; completely rewiring and transforming the food supply system, assuming this technology receives widespread adoption. This would give crops a wider array of traits that include higher yields, increased shelf life, no seeds or pits, disease resistance, and much more. ...
... Afeyan and Flagship Pioneering Managing Partner Doug Cole launched a months-long exploration inside Flagship Labs, the enterprise’s innovation foundry. At first, the venture was merely a numbered prototype company or “ProtoCo:” LS18. ... In early 2010, LS18 was renamed Moderna ...
Noubar Afeyan founded both companies, according to Flagship's website.