Author: Douglas Orr

In the lead up to the break we bid farewell (e boa viagem) to several short- and long-term team members who are off to new adventures and/or leaving us after a visit. Louis bids farewell after several years in various roles and projects with the team to head back to his native Wales for a […]
We now have an open PhD position with Elizabete and Doug to investigate the role of sugar phosphates and their specific phosphatases on photosynthetic regulation in cowpea and soybean. This project and studentship is open to UK & international candidates, details at this link. This work is associated with the broader international RIPE consortium which […]
With the academic year starting our two summer interns in the lab have finished up for now  to begin their 3rd year studies. Ben made big contributions to several experiments with cowpea as part of the RIPE project working with Elizabete, including a lot of sampling with Rhiannon! Callista worked as an EPSRC Summer Vacation […]
Just out in Journal of Experimental Botany is our review article on Rubisco inhibition by sugar phosphate derivatives, the phosphatases that degrade them, is now online in early form. This review is part of an upcoming special issue on Rubisco regulation in JXB so keep a look out for a great bunch of papers on […]
Congratulations to a team led by Albert Liu from the Shih lab at UC Berkley, including contribution from Lancaster researcher Doug, who have just published in Science Advances on retracing the evolutionary path of Rubisco structural assemblies, including some really interesting mutations which alter assembly of the holoenzyme. Well done to all involved! You can […]
A (slightly delayed) post from me (Doug) to share that I was recently at the Carbon Concentrating Mechanisms 10 (CCM10) conference at Princeton, USA. This was my first time at this meeting and it was great to see many familiar faces for the first time in a while including colleagues from as far back as […]
Joining the team for a research visit is Nandhara Mendes from Universidade Estadual São Paulo (UNESP) in Brazil. Nandhara is a Masters student in Plant Production and will be contributing to our work on improving the productivity and sustainability of cowpea. Welcome Nandhara!
A warm (24 degrees today!) Lancaster welcome to our two summer interns Callista and Ben starting today with the team! Callista is an EPSRC Summer Vacation Student who will work with Doug on CCM engineering related research. Ben will be working with Elizabete on cowpea as part of the RIPE project. Looking forward to a […]
Recently  a number of members of the team contributed to a review article in Annual Review of Plant Biology. Much of our recent and ongoing work is on how photosynthesis responds to fluctuating flight, and the article is very appropriately titled! The article Into the Shadows and Back into Sunlight: Photosynthesis in Fluctuating Light is […]
A warm, sunny Lancaster welcome to Nathalia, who joins on a 6 month placement to study heat stress. Nathalia is visiting us from Universidade Federal de Lavras (Federal University of Lavras), continuing the strong links between the 2 universities and in agricultural research.