... [+]Usually, crops from up to a hundred different farms are combined, packaged, and distributed. So, when an outbreak occurs, it can take months to confirm the originating farm. If, however, a crop is treated with a spore tag, it can be quickly exonerated if a simple qPCR test of contaminated product fails to identify the tag.
Not only can Aanika offer premiums up to 30% cheaper than what’s currently available, but their payouts will occur within 48 hours of an FDA notification of a problem. Determining whether a crop treated with Aanika’s spores is at the root of an outbreak is quick and easy: either a simple qPCR assay or an on-site isothermal test developed by Aanika that delivers results in just 10 minutes. This alone saves producers about 30-40% of the claim just by cutting down investigation time and costs.
“If we see that there's an edge biologically, we can look at that edge, really understand it, develop our own technology around it, and then structure an insurance product around it,” explains Bhuyan. “I think there’s a future where Aanika will insure companies using cutting edge technology because we understand what people are doing.
“ChatGPT is cool not just because it uses AI, but because it’s so mainstream now that even my mom is talking about it. I can see that happening with synthetic biology. If we can build a really successful company that happens to use synthetic biology, that would be a major win.”
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