Future-proofing sugar production - CambPlants leads discussions with global AB Sugar Management

As part of their annual global operations conference, AB Sugar invited members of the CambPlants Initiative to an afternoon of talks, posters and discussions surrounding how the company could respond to challenges and opportunities posed by global developments.

Dr Bhaskar Vira (Geography) gave an overview of the Strategic Initiative in Global Food Security and issues around political economy, such as land- and resource-grabbing; Prof Howard Griffiths (Plant Sciences) talked about water stress, carbon concentrating mechanisms and genetic innovation in crop plants, and Prof Paul Dupree (Biochemistry) highlighted opportunities for production of energy and chemicals from sugar and lignocellulosic by-products.

The talks were followed by a lively panel discussion and then a poster-pitch session. Dr Matthew Castle (Plant Sciences) introduced modelling of disease spread and mitigation options, Dr Matthew Davey (Plant Sciences) explained bioremediation and generation of value-from-waste using algae, Dr Paolo Bombelli (Biochemistry) and Ross Dennis (Plant Sciences) showcased the power of biophotovoltaics with the moss clock, and Dr Sue Barnard (Zoology and Tropical Biology Association) highlighted benefits of biodiversity conservation.

Throughout the afternoon, delegates captured ideas of how the new information could be incorporated into forward planning of the business, and follow-up conversations will take place with AB Sugar's innovation department.

2013 Portrait unveiling

Two new portraits are officially unveiled in the Department Tea Room. Professor Enid MacRobbie and Professor John Gray join the wall of previous Heads of Departments.

Director news

An announcment from David Baulcombe:

I am pleased to announce that Beverley Glover will be the next Director of the Botanic Garden. She will take up her post in July 2013. This is excellent news for her, for the Garden and for Plant Sciences generally.
Beverley's current research.
Botanic Garden news announcment

Another happy development in the Botanic Garden is the news that Ottoline Leyser will be the next Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory. Best wishes to her also as she takes on this exciting challenge.
Ottoline's current research.

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

Labmash a smash hit

Plant Sciences played host to 28 secondary school students who live in care, as part of the University’s "Realise" project that encourages students to stay in 16+ education. Students took part in a shortened practical adapted from our first year undergraduate "Physiology of Organisms" course.

"Labmash; an introduction to enzyme induction" allowed students hands-on experience of extracting and assaying for nitrate reductase. It was great fun for staff and students alike.

Feedback comments included: "It's like CSI Miami!" "ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I loved it - I'm considering studying Biology for uni" and "Very interactive, friendly and well supported".

Thanks go to Barbara Landamore, teaching staff and volunteer post-grads.

Paper published in PNAS

A new paper published in PNAS this week provides evidence for chloroplast pyrenoid formation in the green alga Chlamydamonas. The pyrenoid, once thought to be a starch-storage granule, is now recognized to be the centre of a carbon concentrating mechanism which turbocharges photosynthesis.

Moritz Meyer, Maddie Mitchell and Howard Griffiths, in collaboration with colleagues in UNL Nebraska, have shown that modifications to the primary carboxylase, Rubisco, are responsible for pyrenoid formation. Specifically, it seems that two regions of the small subunit, the alpha helices, interact to allow Rubisco to aggregate into the pyrenoid, which also regulates CCM activity.

Read online

BBSRC Doctoral Training Partnership Programme

The BBSRC Doctoral Training Partnership Programme started on 1st October 2012. The programme, developed following an award of £5.6M from the BBSRC, will have at least 60 students over the next three years. The programme, which sits in the Graduate School of Life Sciences, involves a number of partners (Babraham Institute, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, European Bioinformatics Institute, National Institute for Agricultural Botany and the Animal Health Trust) as well as 15 Departments and Institutes in the Schools of Biological Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Physical Sciences and Technology.

The Programme's Director, Professor Sir David Baulcombe, hosted a welcome dinner at St Catharine's College on 3rd October 2012.