TeOra’s Dr. Rishita Changede is committed to improving the livelihoods of farmers who supply much of the world’s food

As part of Her World’s Women Of The Year celebration, the Her World Hello Possibilities award is presented in collaboration with Singtel and recognises inspirational female game changers who have made it their business to improve the lives of women and society at large through their company’s impact, creativity and clever use of technology.

When Dr Rishita Changede reflects on how she spends her free time, it is clear how passionate she is about her work. Besides getting out into nature, she is also an avid reader whose tastes veer into books about how businesses are built and sustained over time. Her takeaway from her “light reading”? “[The product] has to be sustainable for the customer, so it must be easy-to-use, easy to integrate into day-to-day practices and something that really works. You have to keep vigilant and keep responding to environmental changes – this is especially true in the disease space.”

This largely sums up Dr. Rishita’s work as CEO and founder of TeOra, a synthetic biology start-up that focuses on creating oral vaccines and precision fermentation solutions to manage diseases and boost growth in aquaculture and agriculture without relying on harsh chemicals or antibiotics. Conceptualised in 2020, the start-up is taking a different look at the use of antibiotics, specifically in the food industry.

“Basically, we all have an immune system,” explains Dr Rishita. “Fish, prawns, food sources, all have an immune system so they can protect themselves from the environment and infectious diseases.” 

While vaccines have long as protection against disease, antibiotic resistance has required new solutions. This is where TeOra comes in: “We take peptides, essentially small fragments of proteins, which will instruct the immune system that this is how danger looks so the body is prepared the next time.” The solution comes in a powder, easily distributed to farmers and distributors who can feed it to their farms. 

“So what TeOra does essentially is disease management solutions and health solutions for plants and animals, starting with aquaculture as the first market.” 

Tackling disease without relying on antibiotics

Dr. Rishita recalls how the company came about from a clear need. “In 2022, the losses in aquaculture from common fish diseases were between 70 to 100 percent – no industry operates with such a high loss,” she says. “We had seen this problem as a big global emerging problem, and our goal was to understand how we can use biotechnology, how we can use AI, how we can use the latest technologies to have a large impact.”

While the company has won numerous awards, including the 2023 Liveability Challenge where TeOra claimed a joint top prize of $1 million in a grant funded by the Temasek Foundation, their success hasn’t been without difficulties.  The company was set up right before the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020 and is less “fancy” compared to a sector like e-commerce, which can make fundraising difficult. “Building a team that would actually deliver on these different promises, building the conviction and the market, building traction and the market – it’s a whole journey,” says Dr Rishita. 

How AI is accelerating the discovery of new solutions

TeOra’s SOLAQ platform combines AI-powered bioinformatics, machine learning and protein design to analyse millions of genetic sequences, identify disease targets and computationally design antimicrobial peptides and biologics tailored to specific pathogens. “Basically, we use AI for discovery. It is used for the design of our peptides, which then become the disease prevention or disease solutions that we are looking for,” explains Dr Rishita.

It is deeply ingrained in their system and helps to reduce a million possibilities into just five or ten, which can then be trialled in a laboratory for safety and efficacy. “Traditionally, a solution would take three to five years to design. This helps us to design something in under three months.” 

And the results speak for themselves. Dr Rishita recounts the story of a farmer whose fish had a viral disease that was killing them or causing them to grow lesions and blisters. “They didn’t know what to do at first, because getting rid of the fish would shut down their entire operation. With our solution, they were actually able to reverse the disease after just 10 days. The symptoms all subsided, and the fish were healthy again.”

Protecting the people who feed the world

“I think what drives us every day is being able to see the impact on the ground,” she adds, recalling seeing farmers basically lose their whole crop and livelihood to disease as a child. The loss of livelihood also has a much greater impact on the world. “If we don’t have enough people growing healthy food, it’s a huge crisis for humanity. So we need to be able to support the people who grow our food in better ways.”

Change is obviously the goal. “I’m really passionate about [this work] because it solves a larger problem,” says Dr Rishita. “You can see the impact on the ground, not just for the farmers, even though we are protecting the livelihoods of some of the most vulnerable communities in the world. It’s also the direct impact on the food that we eat. So if our food is not healthy, we are not going to be healthy. That impact is something that really keeps me going.” 

PHOTOGRAPHY Sayher Heffernan
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