In October, the company announced that it would begin selling its genetically engineered houseplant — a version of the popular pothos vine, also known as “Devil’s ivy” — for $179, with pre-orders starting in the first quarter of 2023.“It’s like trying to build a plane while flying.” Patrick TorbeyHow it works: Neoplants chose to work with pothos because its large leaves and naturally fast growth meant it already absorbed a relatively large amount of pollutants.Unfortunately, the plant isn’t the subject of much research, which meant Neoplants had to first sequence pothos’ genome itself and then try to figure out which genes to tweak (and how to tweak them) in order to supercharge the plant’s filtration of VOCs.The 2019 Drexel study estimated you’d need a virtual jungle of houseplants to clean indoor air; even scaling that down by a factor of 30 could mean quite a few plants.The bottom line: Neo P1 might be Neoplant’s first genetically engineered houseplant, but the company doesn’t expect it to be its best — the startup just opened a new R&D lab and plans to continue developing its plants to make them even more efficient air purifiers."