Glowing_Plant_project
Glowing Plant project
Crowdfunded synthetic biology campaign
The Glowing Plant project was the first crowdfunding campaign for a synthetic biology application. The project was started by the Sunnyvale-based hackerspace Biocurious as part of the DIYbio philosophy. According to the project's goals, funds were used to create a glowing Arabidopsis thaliana plant using firefly luminescence genes. Long-term ambitions (never realized) included the development of glowing trees that can be used to replace street lights, reducing CO2 emissions by not requiring electricity.
In 2023 this concept was finally achieved, commercialized, and brought to market by Light Bio, [1] who used a fungal luminescence gene in petunias to achieve the first commercially available luminescent plants. These are currently only available in the US (as of 2024)