Precision BioSciences has appointed Fayaz Khazi, Ph.D., to serve as the President of Precision PlantSciences, a business unit developing innovative, high impact products in the food and agriculture sectors aligned with Precision’s overall mission to improve life through scientific innovation.

“I am thrilled to welcome Fayaz Khazi to the Precision team,” said Matthew Kane, Chief Executive Officer of Precision BioSciences. “It was essential that we find a leader with demonstrated success in both agricultural innovation and human health and, more importantly, someone who could appreciate the critical connections between the two. With his unique expertise and vision, I am convinced that Fayaz will lead us beyond traditional crop enhancements and develop truly novel products that bridge human health and industry demands.”

Prior to joining Precision, Dr. Khazi was the Chief Executive Officer of KeyGene USA. At KeyGene, Fayaz established highly successful business relationships and strategic R&D collaborations to enable accelerated crop improvement in the plant breeding, food ingredients and sustainable commodities markets in North and South America.

Dr. Khazi holds a doctorate in molecular genetics from Auburn University where he studied DNA repair and recombination. As an HHMI post-doctoral fellow, he trained with Dr. Katherine High at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia studying genotoxicity of gene therapy vectors and developing in vivo genome-editing technologies to treat hemophilia B. He then became the founding Director of Translational Medicine at Intrexon Corporation, where he held several executive leadership positions supporting the food, human health and agricultural biotechnology sectors. Dr. Khazi also worked with executive management at Intrexon to help launch a successful IPO in 2013 (NYSE: XON) before moving on to become Chief Executive Officer of KeyGene USA. With Precision’s next-gen ARCUS genome-editing platform, Fayaz will continue to pursue innovative approaches and creative partnerships at the nexus of food, agriculture and human wellness.

“Technology and scientific innovation are no longer limitations to fully addressing generational challenges of nutritional security and wellness. Precision’s technical capabilities and forward-thinking view of the connections between medicine, nutrition and agriculture are what attracted me to embark on this journey,” said Fayaz. “Through innovative integration of Precision’s ARCUS genome-editing platform with novel tools in target discovery and validation, we look forward to making a positive impact on improving global food and nutrition systems, sustainability and human wellness.”

About Precision BioSciences

Precision BioSciences is a genome editing company dedicated to improving life. Our team seeks to solve significant problems in oncology, genetic disease, agriculture, and beyond using a unique, proprietary genome-editing platform called ARCUS. With an industry-leading combination of site specificity, ease of delivery, and breadth of targeting and editing capabilities, our next-gen editing approach overcomes major challenges limiting the translation of promising basic research to products that can fundamentally improve life.

Amazon has announced that it will be buying Whole Foods for USD $13.7 billion.

After months of speculation, the e-commerce giant has acted on rumours that it would be purchasing the natural health foods retailer. Following this, stocks for Target, Kroger, United Natural Foods, and Walmart fell.

However, this acquisition will not only affect Amazon’s direct competitors: its effects will slowly but surely trickle down into the world of independent grocers.

For independents, this represents the complete integration of online and bricks-and-mortar retail. With Whole Foods and amazon.ca under its belt, Amazon will be able to dominate the Canadian retail market in its entirety. This underlines a need to strengthen e-commerce initiatives, including home delivery options, product selection, and delivery speed.

This buyout also brings even slimmer profit margins to the table. Because Amazon’s business model leaves it with a net income of nearly zero each quarter, a Whole Foods operating under the giant will accept lower margins than it does as an independent chain. This will ultimately drive their prices down, making it incredibly difficult for independent retailers to compete. To fight this, independent grocers must continue to offer unique services, strong client-grocer relations, and a wide range of fresh, attractive products.

The transaction is expected to be finalized at the end of 2017.

While bioactive nutrients—like those found in fruits, veggies, tea, and cocoa—have been praised as a source of good health, professionals are calling for safe level guidelines to regulate them.

A team of researchers at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) want public health officials to recommend maximum intake levels for bioactives. This, they say, will help to educate people about what they are consuming.

John Erdman, a professor emeritus in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois and leader of the study, reports that the key to establishing appropriate levels is assessing bioactives’ safety and potential toxicity.

“There’s been a huge amount of interest in bioactives in foods, not only in the College of ACES at Illinois, but around the world, as they relate to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and longevity,” he says. “Often times we’ll use an animal model or cell culture model to test a bioactive to see if it has efficacy. I don’t think very many people think about the safety side, though.”

Today, bioactive use is not currently regulated. Because of this, Erdman and his team want to see Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) and/or Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) set for these nutrients. This, says Erdman, will determine efficacy, as well as safety.

“If we’re going to make recommendations for something like resveratrol, a compound in red wine, as an example, or lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes, we should have an idea about how much is really needed for efficacy,” he explains. “How often do you need to consume it? And are supplements of resveratrol or lycopene absorbed by humans and stable in the bottles? If you just go to a health foods store for supplements, you don’t really know what you’re getting.”

Erdman adds, “You don’t want people thinking they are improving their health by consuming large amounts of the material and are actually causing harm. In order to make recommendations you have to know what the upper safe limit of the material is. In many cases that’s not known very well. There has been much less work done with bioactives.”

According to new research from The University of Texas at Austin, several natural compounds in food could thwart the growth of prostate cancer. These include apple peels, turmeric, and red grapes.

Researchers used a new analytical approach to screen several plant-based chemicals, rather than testing a single agent. They found that together, a variety of these substances can shrink prostate tumours.

“After screening a natural compound library, we developed an unbiased look at combinations of nutrients that have a better effect on prostate cancer than existing drugs,” says corresponding author Stefano Tiziani, assistant professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dell Pediatric Research Institute at UT Austin. “The beauty of this study is that we were able to inhibit tumor growth in mice without toxicity.”

The researchers tested 142 natural compounds on mouse and human cell lines to see which were able to inhibit prostate cancer cell growth. The most promising ones included ursolic acid, found in apple peels and rosemary; curcumin, found in turmeric; and resveratrol, found in red grapes and berries.

“These nutrients have potential anti-cancer properties and are readily available,” says Tiziani. “We only need to increase concentration beyond levels found in a healthy diet for an effect on prostate cancer cells.”

The study also discussed demonstrates how the plant-based chemicals work together. When ursolic acid was combined with either curcumin or resveratrol, it blocked cancer cells from absorbing glutamine, which they need to grow.

While nutrition is one of the core foundations of cardiovascular health and its risk reduction guidelines, little is known about whether professionals in this field have a firm grasp of it. A recent study published in the American Journal of Medicine determined that they do not.

Researchers looked at the educational experiences, attitudes, and practices relating to nutrition among cardiovascular professionals. Through surveys completed by cardiologists, fellows-in-training, and cardiovascular team members, scientists hoped to better understand their real knowledge of nutrition. Nine hundred and thirty subjects were asked questions about their personal dietary habits, history of nutrition education, and attitudes regarding nutrition interventions.

The results showed that among cardiologists, 90 per cent reported receiving no or minimal nutrition education during fellowship training, 59 per cent reported no nutrition education during internal medicine training, and 31 per cent reported receiving no nutrition education in medical school. On the other hand, 8 per cent described themselves as having “expert” nutrition knowledge. Despite this, fully 95 per cent of cardiologists believe that their role includes personally providing patients with at least basic nutrition information. Addditionally, only 20 per cent of cardiologists ate more than 5 servings of vegetables and fruits per day.

Because of this, all medical professionals—especially those dealing with heart health—need to ensure that they understand and appreciate the vital role nutrition plays in wellness. Ensure that you, your colleagues, and your staff are able to properly explain nutrition to your patients—and, just maybe, practice what you preach.

The Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) is welcoming on David Clark as its new vice-president. In this role, Clark will manage key business files, including finance and membership.

Previously, Clark worked with GS1 Canada, the Canadian sector of world’s leading supply chain standards organization. There, he worked as senior director of industry relations, partnering with the grocery community on a variety of different initiatives.

David is a key leadership team member, and is responsible for managing key business files including finance and membership,” says the CHFA website. “He works closely with president Helen Long and the Board of Directors in determining strategic direction and supporting the Board’s objectives. He brings his experience and entrepreneurial spirit to CHFA as we continue to support our members and promote the growth of the industry.”

At its annual shareholders meeting, Walmart announced that it has begun to reinvent the future of shopping. Now, the company plans to leverage technology to empower its associates and improve its customer experience.

“[Technology will] make shopping with us faster, easier and more enjoyable. We’ll do more than just save customers money and you, our associates, will make the difference,” Doug McMillion, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., told the meeting’s 14,000 attendees. “Looking ahead, we will compete with technology, but win with people. We will be people-led and tech-empowered.”

He also highlighted a variety of new company initiatives, including:

• An automated pick-up tower for online non-grocery orders
• A 20-by-80-foot refrigerated self-serve kiosk for grocery orders
• Pick-up stations in parking lots
• A discount for in-store pick-ups of online items
• A delivery service for suburban and rural communities
• Robotics and image analytics for item availability
• Digital endless-aisle shopping
• Advanced pricing algorithms
• Free two-day shipping

It was also revealed that the company is creating jobs in new areas, including data scientists, machine-learning engineers, and mobile app developers.