Making the most of sunshine

Exciting news as we have 2 new PhD project opportunities advertised via the North West Bio program.

There are projects with Sam and Doug. These projects are intended to be Lancaster-based, but with strong links to partner institutions and the opportunity to spend at least some of the time working with co-supervisors based at these partner institutions.

Sam is interested in looking at Barley and how it might cope with stress under future high CO₂ conditions, using a range of techniques including physiology and hyperspectral imaging with collaborators at the James Hutton Institute and University of Strathclyde. You can find more details here: TOMORROW NEVER DIES: WILL A HIGH CO2 WORLD MEAN LESS STRESS FOR BARLEY?

Doug’s project is around understanding more about the role of the potent Rubisco inhibitor CA1P, and how plants synthesise this compound in response to changes in light conditions. It involves techniques like plant biochemistry, proteomics, and metabolomics, in collaboration with colleagues at Queen’s University Belfast. More details are here: Understanding the synthesis and role of the Rubisco inhibitor CA1P

For full details including eligibility and the application process please see the website for the North West Bio DTP.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the project supervisors before applying.
Applications close on 6th January 2025.

A big Lancaster welcome to Anna and Quentin who this week begin thier PhD journeys!

Anna is joining Elizabete’s group to work on engineering Rubisco Activase thermotolerance, and Quentin joins Marjorie’s group to study C2 engineering in model species.
Anna was previously a Masters student with Doug, while Quentin joins from the US having completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois.

Well done to Lundgren Lab PhD student Catherine Walsh, who together with Marj has just published a review article on “Nutritional quality of photosynthetically diverse crops under future climates” in Plants, People, Planet.

Great work, and an important topic to understand as the climate continues to change and become more variable.

Very well done to Joana on her well deserved promotion to Senior Research Associate!

Joana is a postdoc on the EU funded CAPITALISE programme, you can read more here about her and the programme.

Congrats to Ana Lobo on leading a publication with Doug and Elizabete that is now available in early access at the Biochemical Journal.

This is part of work on understanding how to improve photosynthetic productivity in rice, within the EU funded PhotoBoost programme.
The paper focuses on improving our understanding of the potential impacts of some chloroplast metabolites on the activity of nature’s primary CO2-fixing enzyme.

Well done Ana!

A big welcome to Ed, Grace, and Gustavo who are all spending time with us on paid internships during the summer months.

They’ll contributing to some of our research projects while getting experience in a research group and building new skills.

New review paper out on the ways we and many colleagues are working to improve photosynthetic efficiency.

This is now available online at The Plant Cell, this was led Roberta Croce and includes contributions from many colleagues including Elizabete.

65814588 – bean vine climbing a tree leaning on a tree or scaffolding.

As part of continually looking at how we do our research from an ethical and sustainablity perspective, we’ve recently begun using new technology to generate antibodies against our favourite proteins like Rubisco Activase.

This was part of a recently published book chapter by Elizabete and alumni Duncan, to generate very specific antibodies for our work that didn’t previously exist.

You can read more in this news article from the department: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/about-us/news/researchers-adopt-approach-for-more-ethical-plant-research

Congrats to several team members for 2 recent publications.

Elizabete and team alumnus Emmanuel, along with a group of colleagues including others at LEC  were involved in a wide ranging study of soybean in Europe, now out in Scientific Reports.
Available online here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-57522-z

Alejandro, who is now leading his own group at UCLAN, has also recently published work with Elizabete on using virus-induced gene silencing to reduce Rubisco Activase expression in wheat, now online and available here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pld3.583

Congrats and well done to everyone involved!

Applications have just opened for a Plant Physiologist postdoc role working with Elizabete as part of the BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Delivering Sustainable Wheat. This project aims to decipher the mechanistic regulation of Rubisco synthesis and degradation and how this process impacts photosynthetic efficiency and nitrogen use efficiency in wheat. The wider project goal is to contribute to optimising the wheat canopy function and interactions between source and sink.

Further details are on the Lancaster University website here: https://hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?id=11351&forced=2

Informal enquiries to Elizabete are welcome, but all applications must be submitted via the portal linked above.