ARIA hits high notes as Universities orchestrate £62.4m 'food of the future' project
Professor Martin Warren, chief scientific officer at the Quadram Institute, is part of an international consortium of researchers working on future foods that can be more nutritious, productive and resilient to climate change.
The project is co-led by Saul Purton at University College London (UCL) and Scott C. Lenaghan, University of Tennessee, USA.
Research teams will bring their skills and knowledge to bear on highly complex synthetic biology research. The co-investigators are: Scott C. Lenaghan, University of Tennessee; Neal Stewart, Jr. University of Tennessee; Alison G. Smith, University of Cambridge, UK; Anil Day, Bright Biotech Ltd, UK; Wes Robertson, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK; Martin Warren, Quadram Institute, Norwich, UK; Chris Voigt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Andre Holzer, Holzer Scientific Consulting, Germany.
The first phase of ARIA’s £62.4 million Synthetic Plants programme aims to develop a new generation of major crops that are more productive, resilient, and sustainable. Phase one focuses on demonstrating that a functioning synthetic plant unit is possible; and understanding the social and ethical considerations around synthetic plants and what is needed to navigate them.
The Quadram Institute team’s involvement with the “Creating a Programmable, Synthetic Plastid Genome: Synplastome v2.0” project involves developing a trait for Vitamin B12 biosynthesis in the engineered potato plant.
The Institute has been awarded a £645,000 grant as a co-investigator. The other trait being worked on will be for nitrogen fixation, led by Chris Voigt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Professor Warren said: “This programme represents a bold leap forward in plant engineering biology. By integrating vitamin B12 biosynthesis into plastid genomes, we’re not just enhancing nutritional value – we’re reimagining what crops can do for human health and environmental resilience. It’s an exciting time to be at the forefront of engineering plants that can help meet global nutritional and sustainability challenges.”
ARIA’s Synthetic Plants programme aims to catalyse a new generation of major crops that are more productive, resilient, and sustainable.
ARIA is an R & D funding agency created to unlock technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone. Created by an Act of Parliament and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, it funds teams of scientists and engineers to pursue research at the edge of what is scientifically and technologically possible.