Grants

Major international push to maximise bioscience research to help world’s poorest farmers

The Department has been awarded two grants from the BBSRC-led programme 'Sustainable Crop Production Research for International Development' (SCPRID).

The aim of Julian Hibberd's grant "Wild rice MAGIC" (£1.4M) is to increase drought tolerance and tolerance to bacterial and viral infections in domesticated rice using naturally existing variation in wild rice species. MAGIC is shortened from Multi-Advanced Generation Inter-Crossing. The research team includes not only scientists in Julian's lab in the Plant Sciences Department, but also colleagues at NIAB, IRRI in the Philippines as well as partners in Coimbatore, India and Tanzania.

The aim of the project "Modelling and manipulation of plant-aphid interactions: A new avenue for sustainable disease management of an important crop in Africa" (led at Plant Sciences by John Carr, Chris Gilligan and David Baulcombe) is to understand how changes in plant biochemistry caused by virus infection alter the behaviour of aphids (insects that transmit viruses between plants) and to see how this knowledge could be used to better protect crop plants against these insects and the viruses they transmit. In this £2M project the main focus is on bean and its viruses and the work will be carried out in collaboration with colleagues at Rothamsted and in Kenya and Uganda. Post Doctoral Research Fellow job is available for this grant (closing date 30 January).

More information

Illus: Although bean varieties resistant to bean common mosaic virus exist, these plants die off if they became infected with another virus, called bean common mosaic necrotic virus that is widespread in Africa. The plant on the left is infected with bean common mosaic virus and the plant on the right is resistant to bean common mosaic virus but has become infected with bean common mosaic necrotic virus (Image credit: CIAT, Uganda).

Making plastics from algae

Alison Smith has attended the kick-off meeting of an EU FP7 network grant called "SPLASH – sustainable polymers from algae sugars and hydrocarbons". The project is between 20 different partners, will cost some €12m and the grant from the European Commission is almost €9m.

More information

David Baulcombe wins prize

David Baulcombe is the recipient of the 2012 Balzan Prize "For his fundamental contribution to the understanding of epigenetics and its role in cell and tissue development under normal and stressful conditions". The Prize will be presented during the award ceremony to be held in Rome on November 14.

Details of the Prize are at http://www.balzan.org/en/home.html

Plant genetics and opportunities in agriculture

David Baulcombe and Andrew Burgess discuss plant genetics and opportunities in agriculture in a Youtube video:

View the video

Seed size is controlled by maternally produced small RNAs, scientists find

Z. Jeff Chen, the D.J. Sibley Centennial Professor in Plant Molecular Genetics at The University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues, including David Baulcombe at the University of Cambridge, provide the first genetic evidence that seed development is controlled by maternally inherited "small interfering RNAs," or siRNAs.

Read more...

Read the publication.

Pioneering patent granted

A new patent granted in the USA is based on work from the group of David Baulcombe. It describes the use of short RNA molecules to silence gene expression in plants and animals and has potential application in biomedical and agricultural biotechnology.


http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/research-technologies/2012/120124-n-pbl-issued-with-pioneering-patent.aspx?utm_source=MailingManager&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BBSRCNewsFeb2012

Extraordinary transgressive phenotypes of hybrid tomato are influenced by epigenetics and small silencing RNAs

New research from Dr Shivaprasad in the Baulcombe group explains why hybrid plants are sometimes much more vigorous or much weaker than the parents. Their findings that have been published recently in the EMBO Journal (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/emboj.2011.458) will influence thinking about evolutionary mechanisms and the use of hybrid plants in agriculture.

David Baulcombe among most important figures in British science

Professor Sir David Baulcombe has been named among most important figures in British science in a list by the Times newspaper.

The Cambridge University news article.

Prof. Sir David Baulcombe elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences

Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Professor of Botany and Royal Society Research Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge is one of forty new Fellows elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in April 2010. There are now 983 Fellows of the Academy.

The Academy of Medical Sciences

David Baulcombe wins two Israeli awards

Sir David has received the $100,000 Wolf Prize for agriculture for his research into how plants defend themselves from viral attacks using “gene silencing" and the $75,000 Harvey Prize for advancements in science and technology.

Read the article in The Jewish Cronicle

£2 billion needed for science ’Grand Challenge’ to help feed the world

Professor Sir David Baulcombe has chaired a report for the Royal Society which says that the UK should lead international research efforts if we are to achieve the massive increase in food crop production (at least 50 percent) that will be required by 2050 to meet global food demands without damaging the environment.

Read the Report and the Press Release.

In the news:
The BBC
The Telegraph
The Times Online
The Guardian
The Independent
Radio 4

Proposal for Regius Professorship of Botany

There will be a discussion in the Senate-House, on Tuesday, 27 October 2009 to discuss the University's proposal to seek the assent of Her Majesty The Queen that the Professorship of Botany be re-titled the Regius Professorship of Botany, to commemorate the forthcoming visit by Her Majesty to the University on 19 November 2009 and the University's 800th anniversary year.

The University currently has six Regius Professorships: of Civil Law, Divinity, Greek, Hebrew, and Physic, all established in 1540; and of Modern History, established in 1724. Regius Professorships also exist at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, St Andrews, and Trinity College Dublin.

The Professorship of Botany, established in 1724, is one of the University's oldest unnamed Professorships in a fundamental scientific discipline. Although it was not established as a Regius Professorship, its early royal connections are clear: the third Professor, Thomas Martyn, received a patent from His Majesty King George III, and was styled by the Crown as 'our Public Professor or Reader of Botany'. His successor John Henslow, Professor of Botany, 1824-61, held the office of King's Reader by patent from the Crown while his appointment to the Professorship was under consideration.

As well as being an enduring memorial to Her Majesty's visit to the University, the Council and the General Board consider that renaming the Professorship would be particularly timely, given the University's leading role in the current international celebrations to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, whose scientific mentor was Professor Henslow. The historical context of Darwin's scientific legacy is mirrored by the importance of the modern field of plant sciences in areas as diverse as food security, biodiversity, conservation, and medicine. Within the University a new Laboratory for fundamental research in plant sciences, generously funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation is currently under construction.

The current holder of the Professorship, Professor Sir David Baulcombe, FRS, has been consulted about the proposal which also has the support of the Head of the School of the Biological Sciences.

David Baulcombe receives award

Professor David Baulcombe has been awarded Knights Bachelor for services to plant sciences in the Queen's Birthday Honours list

Cambridge University news page

Maternal influence through small RNA

Just as the universe is filled with mysterious and unexplained matter, so living cells are filled with small RNAs – the “dark matter” of genetics. Plants cells contain hundreds of thousands of these tiny molecules but only for a few of them is there a known function. Cambridge University scientists recently discovered a surprising characteristic of small RNAs in plants. In an article published online today in the journal Nature, researchers led by Professor David Baulcombe describe maternal-specific expression of the most abundant class of small RNAs in developing seeds. Although the small RNAs are produced from cells containing genes from both parents, only the maternal genes are active. Scientists have known for decades that organisms have a molecular memory of which genes they have inherited from each parent and this “imprint” is of critical importance in a number of human diseases. However, very little is known about the nature of imprinting or why such a mechanism would evolve. Dr. Rebecca Mosher, a senior researcher in the group, suggests that imprinted expression of small RNAs indicates large-scale genetic control by the mother – perhaps an evolutionary example of over-parenting.

Read the publication in Nature


A developing seed contains two cell types with maternal DNA – the endosperm (green area) and the embryo (brown). The maternal (purple edge) and paternal (brown) genomes are both active but only the maternal genomes generate small RNA (purple line).

David Baulcombe awarded ‘America’s Nobel’ Prize for medical research

David Baulcombe, the Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, is being honoured with the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for his discovery of how tiny RNA molecules govern gene activity through a process known as RNA silencing.

Article by David Baulcombe
The Lasker Foundation award description
Download the press resease
David Baulcombe's research page

David Baulcombe wins award

David Baulcombe, the Professor of Botany, has been awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science for 2008

The medal has been presented by the Franklin Institute to Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun and David Baulcombe for their discovery of small RNAs that turn off genes. The Franklin Institute has honored the greatest men and women of science, engineering and technology since 1824.

Professor David Baulcombe FRS to be new Professor of Botany

The Department is pleased to announce the election of Professor David Baulcombe FRS, as the new Professor of Botany with effect from 1 September 2007. Professor Baulcombe, is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre in Norwich Trained as a botanist, his research interests are in the area of plant gene expression generally. As a result of his studies of expressing viral genes in plants, he established the role of small RNAs in RNA silencing, a mechanism for regulation of gene expression that is universal (see an interview).

Professor Baulcombe has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards in recognition of his work, including the Massry Prize from the Massry Foundation, University of Southern California in 2005 and the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Science from the Wiley Foundation, Rockefeller University, both shared with Craig Mello and Andrew Fire. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2001, and as a foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in 2005.