Tuesday 29 October 2019

Fully funded BBSRC SWBio CASE PhD Studentship: Intercepting CLAVATA receptor-like kinase function to engineer ear size in wheat


Summary
Ensuring continuous global food security will be a major challenge of the 21st century, and wheat contributes approximately 20% of the total calories consumed by humans (FAO, 2017). In cereals like wheat, inflorescence (ear) size determines the number of flowers (florets) and grains produced, and this aspect of plant architecture is regulated by the activity of stem cells in the growing shoot tips. The CLAVATA peptide/ receptor-like kinase signalling pathway maintains the size of the stem cell pool during plant development, and mutants in maize and tomato have increased yields, arising due to an increase in size of the stem cell pool.
This project aims to intercept wheat CLAVATA signalling to engineer ears with more fertile grain sites and increase yield.
The project will involve:
(1) Identification of wheat CLAVATA pathway components
(2) Expression analyses of wheat CLAVATA pathway components
(3) Generation phenotypic analysis of wheat CLAVATA pathway mutants.
Dr Harrison’s group has recently published gene trees for CLAVATA pathway components from a range of land plants (Whitewoods et al. (2018)), and she has experience of analysing gene expression patterns and function in a wide range of plant species. Professor Edwards and colleagues from the Bristol Centre for Agricultural Innovation have extensive experience with wheat having sequenced the genome (Brenchley et al. (2012)), identified many mutants from the exome sequenced Cadenza TILLING mutant population (Krasileva et al. (2017)) and established engineering procedures using CRISPR/Cas9. The CASE partnership with RAGT seeds will bring an opportunity for the student to directly experience wheat breeding and exchange knowledges and finding with wheat growers.
Training
By combining computational and wet lab approaches, the project will provide training at the cutting edge of the plant development field. It will benefit from further formal teaching and internships included in the SWBioDTP programme. The skills and techniques the student will learn will be broadly applicable in the academic biology and biotech sectors and widely transferable amongst areas such as science policy, publishing and computing.
Reading
Brenchley et al. (2012). Analysis of the bread wheat genome using whole-genome shotgun sequencing. Nature 491: 705-710.
Krasileva et al. (2017). Uncovering hidden variation in polyploid wheat. PNAS 114: E913-E921.
Whitewoods et al. (2018). CLAVATA was a genetic novelty for the morphological innovation of 3D growth in land plants. Current Biology 28: 2365-2376.   
Application procedure
Informal enquiries to Jill.Harrison@bristol.ac.uk
Eligibility: UK residents plus EU applicants with restrictions
Closing date: Monday 2nd December 2019
Shortlisting: 8th January 2020
Interviews: 28th January 2020

4 comments:

  1. biotech lab space for rent
    biotech companies have been acquired ... demand for lab space within or nearby life sciences ... not incurred until a lease with a life sciences.Another example of a Biotech Lab project we worked on involved converting an office space into a Biotech Lab which included fume hoods and coolers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I found that site very usefull and this survey is very cirious, I ' ve never seen a blog that demand a survey for this actions, very curious... PhD Proposal

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice post! This is a very nice blog that I will definitively come back to more times this year! Thanks for informative post. funding talent reviews

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is my first time i visit here and I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially it's discussion, thank you. Best PhD Proposal Writing Service

    ReplyDelete