Photosynthesis Research at the Lancaster Environment Centre

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Welcome new PhD researchers!

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.

 

 

New publication: investigating the regulation of Rubisco by chloroplast metabolites

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!

Using more ethically sourced reagents in plant science

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

New publications

Congrats to several team members for 2 recent publications.

Elizabete and team alumnus Emmanuel, along with a group of colleagues including others at LECĀ  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!

 

New postdoc position available with Elizabete

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.

 

MSCA Fellowship success for Carmen!

Super exciting times with the news that Carmen’s MSCA Fellowship has been selected for funding by the European Commission!

Her project will study epidermis and mesophyll development coordination in Arabidopsis, and be hosted in Elizabete’s group.

Massive congratulations to Carmen for all the hard work that went into it, and looking forward to seeing the cool results in the coming years!

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