THE PACE OF DEVELOPING NEW CROP VARIETIES NEEDS TO ACCELERATE TO KEEP UP WITH THE FUTURE CHALLENGES OF PRODUCING MORE NUTRITIOUS STRESS-TOLERANT CROPS USING FEWER INPUTS IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE MANNER. RECENT GENE EDITING TECHNIQUES PROMISE TO GREATLY SPEED UP THE PROCESS OF CROP IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PRECISE MODIFICATION OF BENEFICIAL GENES. HOWEVER, CURRENT GENE EDITING PROCEDURES LARGELY RELY ON TISSUE CULTURE AND PLANT REGENERATION TECHNIQUES THAT ARE SLOW, LABOR-INTENSIVE, AND NOT EASILY APPLICABLE TO MANY IMPORTANT CROPS. RECENTLY, THE PASSIVE DELIVERY OF DNA PLASMIDS THROUGH PLANT CELL WALLS HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED USING CARBON NANOTUBES BUT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED ACROSS DIVERSE CROP SPECIES. THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROJECT WILL BE TO OPTIMIZE A RAPID CRISPR/CAS-BASED GENE EDITING PROTOCOL ACROSS FOUR CROP PLANTS USING CARBON NANOTUBE-BASED DELIVERY AND IN PLANTA TRANSFORMATION. RICE WILL BE USED AS A MODEL SPECIES TO DEVELOP THE SYSTEM, WHICH WILL THEN BE APPLIED ACROSS THREE AGRICULTURALLY IMPORTANT MINOR CROPS THAT DO NOT YET HAVE HIGH-THROUGHPUT GENE EDITING SYSTEMS IN PLACE: SORGHUM, PEANUT, AND COWPEA. BY DEVELOPING A RAPID GENE EDITING SYSTEM ACROSS THESE DIVERSE CROPS, THIS PROJECT WILL PAVE THE WAY FOR HIGH-THROUGHPUT GENE EDITING ACROSS VIRTUALLY ANY CROP SPECIES WITHOUT THE NEED FOR AGROBACTERIUM-BASED TRANSFORMATION AND THE SUBSEQUENT TISSUE CULTURE PROCESS FOR REGENERATION. THE IMPACT WOULD BE TREMENDOUS, AS IT WOULD ENABLE THE LARGE POPULATIONS OF EDITED PROGENY NEEDED TO IDENTIFY LOW-FREQUENCY EDITS SUCH AS PRECISION ALLELE REPLACEMENTS, AS WELL AS EMPOWERING PLANT BREEDERS TO MAKE GREATER USE OF GENE EDITING EVEN ACROSS HISTORICALLY UNDERFUNDED CROPS. THUS, THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF THIS RESEARCH IS TO DEVELOP FASTER GENE EDITING APPROACHES TO ENABLE PLANT BREEDERS TO ACCELERATE CROP IMPROVEMENT TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE.