Hi-Genomics, LLC is a spin-off biotechnology company that is the exclusive licensee of technology from the University of Toledo in the areas of plant tissue culture and genetic engineering of monocots and dicots. What makes us unique is that we have coupled high output, rapid, genotype independent regeneration technologies to high frequency DNA transfer into crops for incorporating value-added traits.

Our coupled regeneration/ transformation technologies are universal in their application to monocots and dicots. We have optimized the technologies in soybean, alfalfa, cotton, ornamentals (begonia, geranium, petunia, poinsettia, orchids and others), maize, sorghum, wheat, tripsacum, festuca-lolium, and in more exotic crops. We have optimized nuclear transformation systems for all these crops, and are in the process of developing chloroplast transformation systems for corn, soybean and alfalfa. Thus our technologies can be used to transfer any value-added genes and bring product to market years ahead of the competing technologies.

We describe below our two core technologies:

In-Vitro Flowering
Our novel manipulation of growth regulators changes cell fate. Specifically, through the manipulation of various cytokinins, we induce and optimize what we call “in vitro flowering” (patent pending), which is the direct production of fertile flowers under in vitro conditions on the surface of cotyledons and radicles devoid of the plant body. We produce a new generation of soybean every 3 months. We produce, on average, 20 seeds in a petri dish.

We have optimized the system in soybean, peanut, centaurea, and petunia. We are reasonably confident we can optimize the system for any dicot.

Our novel manipulation of growth regulators also induces cell competence for robust DNA transformation. Our system works well with both the biolistic gun and Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. Because of our high rate of T-DNA transfer, we do not need to use patented super-virulent Agrobacterium strains.

Split Seed Technology
We have a novel technology for propagating maize in connection with robust DNA transfer, which we call our “split seed technology” (patent pending). We longitudinally split the corn seed to simultaneously expose three different tissues -- the scutellum, the coleoptilar-ring and the shoot apical meristem. By applying a novel growth regulator regime, we induce competence in these cells to regeneration through either direct organogenesis or callus. Within 6-8 weeks, we recover, on average, 25 fertile plants per seed.

The split speed protocol offers special advantages with chloroplast transformation because it allows for the formation of large areas of green callus, thus enriching target opportunities for chloroplast transformants.

Please contact us if you’d like to learn more.