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

Independent and Parallel Recruitment of Preexisting Mechanisms Underlying C4 Photosynthesis

Work conducted by Naomi Brown and others in Julian Hibberd's lab (including two former Part II students) is published in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1201248). Naomi provided the first evidence that multiple genes important in the C4 pathway share a common regulatory mechanism. The work also shows that genes in phylogenetically distant C3 plants are primed to be recruited into the C4 pathway, and so offers major insight into the origins of the C4 pathway. When Naomi returns from maternity leave she will investigate the importance of these new findings on a recently funded grant by the BBSRC.

Cambridge Scientists win major component of $4 Million joint funding initiative

Cambridge Scientists win major component of $4 Million joint funding initiative funded jointly by BBSRC (UK) and NSF (US)

Plants really matter, and for the next generation, plant and microbial productivity will become the focus of key global issues: the basis for feeding an additional 2-3 billion mouths, to drive forward an economy currently trading on past sunlight, and maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change. The enzymatic powerhouse at the heart of these processes takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and uses light energy to produce sugars and other building blocks of life. This enzyme, called Rubisco, is rather flawed and somewhat promiscuous: it engages with oxygen as well as carbon dioxide, to the detriment of potential plant productivity. Some plants have evolved mechanisms, which act like biological turbochargers, to concentrate CO2 around Rubisco and improve the enzyme’s operating efficiency. These carbon concentrating mechanisms have evolved in certain key crops, such as sugar cane and maize. Other plants, such as aquatic algae, have developed mechanism in parallel which actively concentrate bicarbonate as a source of CO2 for Rubisco.

An $8 million collaborative funding opportunity was recently offered by the UK BBSRC and the US NSF, with the challenge of surpassing these known pathways of carbon fixation, and maximising plant yield for the future. Selected scientists were pitched together to develop international consortia to develop novel ideas, prompted and guided by a scientific mentors and administrators. Four proposals were invited to be taken forward for development and funding, two of which involve scientists in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. The Ideas Lab experience was likened by Prof Griffiths to be a combination of Big Brother, The Weakest Link and The Apprentice! Prof. Griffiths is the consortium leader for one of the joint proposals funded, which will be exploring the operation of an algal carbon concentrating mechanism, and the possibility for introducing components into higher plant cells. Dr Julian Hibberd is part of another consortium also supported by the BBSRC/NSF initiative, seeking to increase the efficiency of light harvesting by broadening the wavelengths of light, as used by bacteria, to power biophysical transport processes in higher plants.

This research support will consolidate a major Plant Sciences initiative at Cambridge, which is exploring the means to improve photosynthesis from the perspective of sustainable plant productivity and crop yields for the future. Additional work is also being undertaken by Dr Hibberd, investigating the potential introduction of C4 photosynthetic traits into crops such as rice. This programme is part of a broader sweep of strategic research relevant to sustainable crop development, involving RNAi, pathogen suppression and epidemiological controls to maintain yields in a changing climate.

Five crop researchers who could change the world

Julian Hibberd has been identified as one of 'Five crop researchers who could change the world' by Nature, the top interdisciplinary scientific journal (volume 456, 563-569). The Nature news feature covers the work of five ambitious scientists determined to stop the world from going hungry. Julian's research programme, with funding from the International Rice Research Institute, will attempt to produce rice with the C4 photosynthesis pathway, potentially increasing grain yield by up to 50%.

Read the Article.

Dr Julian Hibberd wins award

Dr Julian Hibberd was awarded the The Melvin Calvin Award of the International Society for Photosynthesis Research at a ceremony on 23 July at the 14th International Congress of Photosynthesis in Glasgow. The award is given every 3 years at the Congress.

Melvin Calvin was awarded a Nobel prize for working on the pathway of carbon dioxide fixation in photosynthesis. The Melvin Calvin award was initiated in 1998 by the Society to honor his contributions to photosynthesis research. It is a monetary award made for outstanding investigations into metabolic and cellular aspects of the photosynthetic process to a scientist who is under 40 years of age on January 1st of the year of the presentation, or is less than 10 years from the granting of the doctoral degree. It is accompanied by a small gratuity, sponsored by Springer.

Further details of the Society and the award are given on the IPSR website.