Project Update – Transition from Setup to Execution
I wanted to share a progress update now that the project has moved from planning into active execution.
Key milestones reached over the past several weeks:
The landing-pad petunia construct has been received and is ready for use in both contracted and in-house workflows
Two purple pigment pathway constructs (regulatory and enzymatic designs) have been finalized and ordered to support early expression testing
I have moved the project into the NC State Phytotron and begun growing petunias on site. Plants are now in early vegetative growth, timed to support upcoming Agrobacterium infiltration experiments
The Agrobacterium infiltration pipeline is being actively prepared: culture conditions, equipment, consumables, and imaging setup are being put in place for first runs
In parallel, I am finalizing the PBROC petunia transformation service agreement for generation of the stable landing-pad line in Petunia hybrida cv. Mitchell. This path will produce reusable GFP-marked host lines for future pigment module swaps
I’m running the work on two parallel tracks:
In-house infiltration experiments to rapidly test construct behavior and pigment logic
Contracted stable transformation to establish the long-term modular platform line
At this stage, progress is where I would expect it to be for petunia work. The current plan is fully executable as scoped, but additional funding would allow me to move faster and run more of the work in parallel rather than serially, particularly around construct testing, plant throughput, and contracted transformation capacity.
I’ll share another update as the next phase of experiments comes online.