Cibus, a gene editing technology company, says it has completed the first regeneration of wheat from a single cell, offering new possibilities for innovation in the global staple crop.

In a release, the company hailed the news as a “major breakthrough for Cibus as well as for the industry.” Greg Gocal, executive vice president and chief scientific officer for Cibus, said the development signifies “the opening of a scalable gene editing process in wheat.”

Noel Sauer, a senior vice president on the Cibus research and development team, said the regeneration “will enable prototyping productivity and quality traits to address this crop’s key challenges potentially providing farmers with new tools to manage their farm and improve their profitability.”

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Cibus, which works to develop traits that will be licensed to seed retail partners, said it plans to use the research to “develop a family of traits to address the most significant challenges faced by farmers globally for wheat, focusing initially on disease resistance and nitrogen use efficiency.” Breakthroughs on those fronts, the company added, could lower wheat’s carbon footprint and improve production.

The company says its platform could also enable “the development of improved wheat quality traits, potentially reducing or eliminating allergens such as gluten.”

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