Texas A&M AgriLife Today just posted a feature story about our ongoing efforts to use genome editing to find new ways to protect plants from insect pests. In addition to being very cool science in collaboration with Anjel Helms (A&M Entomology) and Mike Thomson (A&M Crop Genome Editing Lab), the project also serves as an excellent example of public-industry partnership. Cotton Inc. has been involved from the very beginning providing the initial support to get the project off the ground, support a graduate student, and collect some initial data (thanks, Mason!). This allowed the project to grow to the point where we applied for and received a grant to carry on from the USDA – National Institute for Agriculture that is being jointly funded by the Cotton Board. At every step, this project has benefited from the support and feedback from the cotton industry to help address major issues in cotton production with the goal of providing sustainable environmental and economic benefits across the board (no pun intended!).