̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - David Baulcombe

New Crop Science Centre opens in Cambridge

jg533 — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 15:16:15 +0000

̽��ֱ��Crop Science Centre is an alliance between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and the crop research organisation NIAB, an internationally recognised centre for crop innovation.

̽��ֱ��Centre will serve as a global hub for crop science research and a base for collaborations with research partners around the world, to ensure global agricultural impact from the ground-breaking science happening in Cambridge. It includes a state-of-the-art facility to maximise the pace of research and accelerate crop improvements.

̽��ֱ��Centre will focus on improving the sustainability and equity of global food production. It will use an understanding of how plants work at the most fundamental level to drive transformative change in how we grow our food. Research will be aimed at reducing agricultural reliance on chemical inputs such as inorganic fertilisers, while maximising crop productivity, especially for the world’s poorest farmers.

Professor Giles Oldroyd FRS, Russell R. Geiger Professor of Crop Science at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Inaugural Director of the Crop Science Centre said: “This year we have seen how fragile our global systems are. ̽��ֱ��COVID-19 crisis is exposing another 120 million people to starvation worldwide, while crop yields here in the UK are suffering from changes in our climate.”

Oldroyd, who leads an international programme to replace inorganic fertilisers, added: “We need lasting solutions for stable and secure food production, but also need to improve sustainability in agriculture. We are excited to be opening this new Centre, which can drive the transformative change we so desperately need.”

Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Urgent action is required to sustainably provide enough quality food for the world’s growing population. By combining our expertise in fundamental plant science with NIAB’s long experience in crop improvement, I am confident that we will make progress towards this vital goal.”

Dr Tina Barsby, CEO of NIAB, said: “Through transformative crop science technologies, research at the new Centre aims to ensure even the world’s poorest farmers can grow enough food. This work is at the top of the international agenda.”

Private donations from the late Russell R. Geiger and Robert and Susan Cawthorn helped to establish the Centre, alongside donations from NIAB and the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Potato Growers Research Association (CUPGRA), and capital funding from the Research England-managed UK Research Partnership Investment Fund. Professor Oldroyd’s research programme is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Further information about the Crop Science Centre is available at www.cropsciencecentre.org

A new Centre in Cambridge, designed to fast-track technologies to sustainably improve farmers’ yields worldwide, was launched today.

This year we have seen how fragile our global systems are...we are excited to be opening this new Centre, which can drive the transformative change we so desperately need.

Giles Oldroyd

NIAB

Crop Science Centre building

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̽��ֱ��£2 billion vegetable and the agricultural future of the East

lw355 — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 11:00:01 +0000

From crop science to robotics, supply chains to economics, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers are working with farmers and industry to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and profitability.

Major funding for new crop sciences research centre that will be ‘centrepiece’ of industrial collaboration

cjb250 — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 15:54:26 +0000

With the global population estimated to reach nine billion people by 2050, ensuring all people have access to sufficient food is one of this century’s greatest challenges.

Today, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is announcing funding for the creation of a new Cambridge Centre for Crop Science (3CS) in collaboration with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB). ̽��ֱ��new centre will provide a major boost to the ̽��ֱ��’s existing research initiatives around global food security.

With £16.9m from the HEFCE-managed UK Research Partnership Investment Fund as well as some £14.5m from the NIAB Trust, the 3CS will focus on impact: working with industrial partners to translate the ̽��ֱ��’s strong fundamental plant research into outputs for the farmer, processor and consumer.

“3CS innovations will generate new crops and new ways of growing crops for food, fuels, industrial feedstocks and pharmaceuticals,” said Professor Sir David Baulcombe, head of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and the project lead for the ̽��ֱ��.

“We envisage that new 3CS crop technologies will enable higher crop yields and lower environmental impact for crop-based food production – as well as contributing to improved dietary health.”

̽��ֱ��project leads say the 3CS will be uniquely well positioned to contribute to growth and innovation due to the partnership at its core: connecting the multidisciplinary research of the ̽��ֱ�� with NIAB’s pipeline to the end-users in farming and food industries.

“ ̽��ֱ��delivery of both public goods and economic growth is an essential agenda for today’s plant scientists, with the need to produce sufficient healthy nutritious food without harming the environment being at the top of the international agenda,” said NIAB’s CEO and Director Dr Tina Barsby.

“Creating the facilities to bring together NIAB and the ̽��ֱ�� in 3CS presents an extraordinary opportunity for impacting this agenda through the development of world-class science and translation.”

̽��ֱ��funding from HEFCE will allow the 3CS to be housed in a state-of-the-art research laboratory at NIAB’s Cambridge site, where it will be led by a newly-appointed Professor of Crop Science. ̽��ֱ��Centre will involve researchers from Plant Sciences and other ̽��ֱ�� departments, NIAB, the Cambridge Sainsbury Laboratory, and other UK and international research institutes.

3CS is already establishing connections with major industry partners, as well as agricultural supply chain networks such as the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Potato Growers Research Association.

In addition to the Cambridge Centre, the funding will also provide new field stations and offices at NIAB’s Histon site, as well as new glasshouses with full environmental controls.

̽��ֱ��Eastern region is a rich area for plant science, and benefits from the Agri-Tech East research and business network. 3CS will allow for closer collaboration with other regional institutes, including the John Innes Centre in Norwich and Rothamsted Research – both of whom have welcomed the establishment of the new centre.

Young researchers will be central to the success of 3CS, says Baulcombe, and the best will be recruited from around the world to be trained in interdisciplinary science, including the latest in plant genetics, bioinformatics, computational modelling and statistics.

Strong links with the agricultural industry through NIAB will mean that 3CS researchers will learn to understand how societal value and industry requirements feed into research design and translation.

While 3CS will make significant contributions to the main globally-traded crops such as wheat and rice, there will be a focus on advances in the genetics and agronomy of other UK crops, such as potato and legumes, and so-called ‘orphan crops’: those that lag behind in technological advances but are vital for smallholder farmers across the developing world.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the ̽��ֱ��’s Vice-Chancellor, said: “3CS will be unlike anywhere else in Europe because it connects a world-leading ̽��ֱ�� directly to growers, breeders and other sectors of industry associated with crops. ̽��ֱ��opportunity could be compared to the potential for advances in healthcare when a research-active medical school co-locates with a hospital and pharmaceutical company.

“ ̽��ֱ��3CS will be the centrepiece of what will be significant new collaborations, and an exemplar of what can be achieved by bringing together interested parties to focus on sustainable crop production – essential for food security, resilience to climate change, and the growing bio-economy.”

Over £30m has been announced for a new Cambridge Centre for Crop Science that will focus on linking with farming and food industries to translate research into real world impact.

3CS will be unlike anywhere else in Europe because it connects a world-leading ̽��ֱ�� directly to growers, breeders and other sectors of industry associated with crops

Leszek Borysiewicz

Carl Davies, CSIRO

Canola crop with wheat crop in background at Wallandbeen, NSW.

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Celebrating 10 years of European research excellence

ag236 — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 12:40:43 +0000

When European government representatives met in Lisbon in the year 2000, and expressed an aspiration that Europe should become the world's leading knowledge economy by 2010, they agreed on the need to create a body to “fund and co-ordinate basic research at European level”.

This was the impetus underlying the creation, in 2007, of the European Research Council (ERC).

Ten years after its foundation, the ERC has become a European success story. It has supported some 6,500 projects through its prestigious grants, and has become a unique model for the fostering and funding of innovative academic research.

To mark the anniversary, events are being held across Europe during ERC Week, running from 13-19 March. At the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, various recipients of ERC grants will be sharing their findings with a wide audience in talks scheduled as part of the Cambridge Science Festival.

̽��ֱ��McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research will be joining in ERC Week celebrations by hosting a conference on Thursday, 16 March.

On the same day, a reception for Cambridge recipients of ERC grants, attended by ERC president Prof. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, will be held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is currently showing the ERC-supported exhibition, “Madonnas and Miracles: ̽��ֱ��Holy Home in Renaissance Italy”.

̽��ֱ��ERC supports outstanding researchers in all fields of science and scholarship. It awards three types of research awards (Starter, Consolidator, Advanced) through a competitive, peer-reviewed process that rewards excellence. Its focus on “frontier research” allows academics to develop innovative and far-reaching projects over five-year periods.

̽��ֱ��United Kingdom has been the largest recipient of ERC awards –between 2007 and 2015, it received 24% of all ERC funding.

To date, the ERC has supported 1524 projects by UK-based academics. Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have won 218 of those grants, in fields ranging from Astronomy to Zoology.

“What is special about an ERC grant?”, asks Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr, who was awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Award for her project “IN-AFRICA”, which examines the evolution of modern humans in East Africa.

“An obvious side is that it’s a lot of money. But I think it’s more than just the money. Because it’s five years, the ERC grant allows you to get a group and build a real community around the project. It also allows you to explore things in greater depth.”

An ERC grant allowed Dr Debora Sijacki, at the Institute of Astronomy, to attract “a really competitive and international team, which otherwise would have been almost impossible to get.”

Being funded for a five-year period, she adds, “gives you time to expand and really tackle some of the major problems in astrophysics, rather than doing incremental research.”

It also allowed her access to facilities: “In my case, it was access to world-leading supercomputers. And without the ERC grant this would have been difficult.”

“Real progress in research is made when researchers can tackle big important questions," says Prof David Baulcombe, of the Department of Plant Sciences, the recipient of two ERC grants. " ̽��ֱ��ERC programme invites researchers to submit ambitious, blue-skies, imaginative proposals. There aren’t many others sources of funding that allow one to do that sort a thing.”

Dr Christos Lynteris, of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH), is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant for his project “Visual representations of the third plague pandemic.

“An ERC is a unique opportunity," he says: “it fosters interdisciplinary work. It also fosters analytical tools and the creation of new methods.”

“It offers a great opportunity to work with other people, over a period of 5 years, which is something very unusual, and with quite a liberal framework, so you are able to change and shift your questions, to reformulate them. For me, it means freedom, above everything.”

For Prof. Ottoline Leyser, Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, it is the “ERC ethos” and its “emphasis on taking things in new directions” that has made all the difference.

̽��ֱ��ERC values an innovative, risk-taking approach “in a way that conventional grant-funding schemes don’t –they usually want to see that slow build rather than the risky step into the unknown.”

Prof. Simon Goldhill, Director of CRASSH, was awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Award for his project “Bible and Antiquity in 19th Century Culture”. It has given him “the unique opportunity to do a genuinely interdisciplinary collaborative project with the time and space it takes to make such interdisciplinarity work.”

“Most importantly,” he adds, “the financial model offered by this sort of project enables us to do work that is 15 or 20 years ahead of the rest of the world, and Britain and Europe are all the stronger for it.”

̽��ֱ��sentiment is echoed by Prof. Ruth Cameron, of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. ̽��ֱ��impact of an ERC grant for her project “3D Engineered Environments for Regenerative Medicine” has, she says, “exceeded expectations”.

So what has the ERC ever done for us? Quite a lot, say Cambridge academics, as they mark the 10th anniversary of Europe’s premier research-funding body

̽��ֱ��financial model offered by this sort of project enables us to do work that is 15 or 20 years ahead of the rest of the world. Britain and Europe are all the stronger for it.

Prof. Simon Goldhill, CRASSH

Cambridge & the ERC: 10 years of research excellence

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Sir David Baulcombe named as new Biochemical Society President

pbh25 — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 10:00:22 +0000

Plant scientist and geneticist Sir David Baulcombe, FRS, has been elected President of the Biochemical Society, the largest learned society in the biosciences.

Sir David will become President of the Society from January 2015 as it implements its five-year strategy to strengthen its international relationships.

“I have always admired the Biochemical Society and the way it promotes our subject. It will be a privilege to help with its current exciting work,” said Sir David.

̽��ֱ��Society’s chairman Steve Busby said: “His findings have opened new avenues in areas like HIV and cancer treatment and disease-resistant agriculture. It will be an honour to have someone of Sir David’s calibre at the helm of the Biochemical Society.”

Plant scientist and geneticist elected as president of learned society for work on cancer, HIV and disease-resistant crops

His findings have opened new avenues in areas like HIV and cancer treatment and disease-resistant agriculture.

Steve Busby, chairman of the Biochemical Society

Martin Fisch

Field of Gold

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From foundry to factory: building synthetic plants

lw355 — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:32:42 +0000

Humans have been modifying plants for millennia, domesticating wild species and creating a bewildering array of crops. Modern agriculture allows global cultivation of plants at extremely low cost, with production on the gigatonne scale of a wide range of biostuffs – from fibres, wood, oils and sugar, to fine chemicals, drugs and food.

But, in the 21st century, we face both ever-increasing demand and the need to shift towards more sustainable production systems. Can we build new plants that make better materials, act as miniature ‘factories’ for food and fuel, and minimise the human impact on the environment?

With this in mind, synthetic biologists are beginning to build new organisms – or at least reprogramme existing organisms – by turning the biology lab into an engineering foundry.

Synthetic biologists choose a ‘chassis’ and then bolt on standard parts – such as genes, the promoters that activate them and the systems they drive – to build something that’s tailor-made. And, like open-source software programmers, they have been looking to open-access and the sharing of code – in this case the DNA that codes for each part – as a practical means of speeding up innovation.

“Providing free access to an inventory of molecular parts for use in the construction of diverse plant-based systems promotes their creative use by others, just as the open-source feature has driven innovation in the computer software industry,” explained Professor Sir David Baulcombe from Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences.

Earlier this year, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the John Innes Centre in Norwich received £12 million in funding for a new UK synthetic biology centre – OpenPlant – to focus on the development of open technologies in plant synthetic biology and their application in engineering new crop traits. ̽��ֱ��effort is being led by Baulcombe and Dr Jim Haseloff in Cambridge, and by Professors Dale Sanders and Anne Osbourn in Norwich.

It’s one of three new UK centres for synthetic biology that, over the next five years, will receive more than £40 million in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

OpenPlant aims to establish the first UK open-source DNA registry for sharing specific plant parts. It will also support fundamental science: “Construction of these parts will allow us to test our understanding of natural plant systems in which assemblages of parts create a greater whole,” Baulcombe explained.

Researchers like Baulcombe and Haseloff, who also leads a new Strategic Research Initiative to advance cross-disciplinary research in synthetic biology in Cambridge, believe that the investment in the three new centres will help the UK stay at the leading edge of plant synthetic biology.

“Any large-scale reprogramming of living systems requires access to a large number of components and, as the number of these parts balloons, the cost of building a portfolio of patents, or licensing parts from patent owners, could strangle the industry and restrict innovation,” explained Haseloff.

“While US researchers lead in the synthetic biology of microbes, the UK has the edge in plants. ̽��ֱ��field needs a new two-tier system for intellectual property so that new tools including DNA components are freely shared, while investment in applications can be protected.”

As well as new DNA components, Haseloff and colleagues have been focusing on a new plant chassis. Rather like the frame of a car, the chassis is the body of the cell that houses the rest of the desired parts. And for this they have turned to liverworts, relics of the first land plants to evolve around 500 million years ago.

̽��ֱ��Marchantia polymorpha liverwort is small, grows rapidly, has a simple genetic architecture and is proving such a useful test-bed for developing new DNA circuits that Haseloff has launched a web-based resource (www.marchantia.org) for a growing international community to exchange ideas. ̽��ֱ��hub characterises one of the wider aims of OpenPlant in promoting interdisciplinary exchange between fundamental and applied sciences, and is one of a series of collaborative projects, such as OpenLabTools (see panel), which are promoting open technology, innovation and exchange between engineers and physical, biological and social scientists across the ̽��ֱ��.

In parallel with the development of standardised parts, the Centre will support around 20 researchers and their teams in Cambridge and Norwich who are engineering new plant traits. For instance, scientists at the John Innes Centre are investigating new systems for producing useful compounds like vaccines. In Cambridge, researchers are creating systems with altered photosynthetic capabilities and leaf structure to boost conversion of the sun’s energy into food, as well as developing plant-based photovoltaics for fuel.

Another of OpenPlant’s aims is to foster debate on the wider implications of the technology at local and global scales. As Baulcombe described, “ ̽��ֱ��open source feature may allow straightforward discussion about the applications of synthetic biology in plants. Societal discussion about other strands of biotechnology has been greatly hampered by the complications following from intellectual property restrictions.”

“We think that biological technologies are the underpinning of the 21st-century’s industrial processes,” added Haseloff. “Plants are cheap and inherently sustainable, and have a major role to play in our future.

In order to implement ideas and shift towards more rational design principles to support advances, we need to have the ability to exploit synthetic biology technologies in a responsive way, and that’s where we see OpenPlant contributing in the years to come.”

Inset images: Marchantia - a primitive plant form used as the 'chassis' for designing new plants. Credit: Jim Haseloff.

A movement is under way that will fast-forward the design of new plant traits. It takes inspiration from engineering and the software industry, and is being underpinned in Cambridge and Norwich by an initiative called OpenPlant.

Plants are cheap and inherently sustainable, and have a major role to play in our future

Jim Haseloff

Marchantia - a primitive plant form used as the 'chassis' for designing new plants

OpenLabTools

OpenPlant is part of a wider move towards ‘sharing’ in Cambridge that now includes scientific tools of the trade.

Resourcing laboratories with scientific tools is a costly business. An automated microscope, for instance, could cost upwards of £75,000, and yet be a key tool in materials and biological laboratories.

Now, an initiative coordinated by Dr Alexandre Kabla, from the Department of Engineering, is rethinking how scientists can access the tools that they need at a less-prohibitive cost.

He recognised that a wealth of instrument-building know-how exists across the ̽��ֱ�� – expertise that could be drawn on to develop a suite of low-cost open-access scientific tools.

Raspberry Pi, for example, was conceived and incubated in the Computer Laboratory to encourage children to learn programming for themselves: this credit-card-sized computer is now available for only $25.

̽��ֱ��OpenLabTools initiative has set itself the task of creating high-end tools such as microscopes, 3D printers, rigs for automation and sensors, with an emphasis on undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. It was created with funding from the ̽��ֱ�� and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and is supported by an academic team of engineers, physicists, materials scientists, plant biologists and computer scientists.

“Current projects primarily focus on the development of core components, thanks to the contributions of a team of physics and engineering students. However, we have already made significant progress towards the development of imaging systems and mechanical testing devices,” said Kabla, whose own expertise lies in the physics and mechanics of biological systems. “We anticipate that these will be rolled out in undergraduate laboratories sometime next year.”

To encourage open access, ‘How To’ manuals and designs are being published on the OpenLabTools website.

“It’s an exciting prospect,” said Kabla. “When you consider that consumer-grade low-cost microscopes are essentially a digital camera with a high magnification objective, not only can we build this but we can also provide a means to automate the microscopy, dramatically reducing the cost of the tool. ̽��ֱ��blueprints and tutorials we make available will be useful for undergraduate and research projects, as well as school activities and small-scale industrial applications running on a tight budget.”

www.openlabtools.org

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Genetics prize honours pioneering research

pbh25 — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:36:11 +0000

Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Regius Professor of Botany at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, is among the three recipients of the 2014 Gruber Genetics Prize.

Victor Ambros, Professor of Molecular Medicine at the ̽��ֱ�� of Massachusetts; and Gary Ruvkun, Professor of Genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School join Professor Baulcombe in receiving the award.

̽��ֱ��three scientists are being recognised with this international prize for their pioneering discoveries of the existence and function of microRNAs and small interfering RNAs, molecules that are now known to play a critical role in gene expression.

̽��ֱ��award will be presented to the recipients in California on 19 October at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.

“ ̽��ֱ��discoveries of these three pioneering scientists have opened major new areas in chemistry, biology, agriculture and medicine and have revealed fundamental mechanisms that are shared among organisms as diverse as plants and animals, including humans,” said Robert Horvitz, Gruber and Nobel Prize laureate.

̽��ֱ��Gruber International Prize Program honours individuals in the fields of Cosmology, Genetics and Neuroscience, whose ground-breaking work provides new models that inspire and enable fundamental shifts in knowledge and culture.

̽��ֱ��Selection Advisory Boards choose individuals whose contributions in their respective fields advance our knowledge and potentially have a profound impact on our lives.

̽��ֱ��Genetics Prize is presented to a leading scientist, or up to three, in recognition of ground-breaking contributions to any realm of genetics research.

For more information on the Gruber Prizes, visit www.gruber.yale.edu.

Cambridge academic among three honoured

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Plant scientists call for rethink of GM crop regulation

jfp40 — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:50:22 +0000

In a report to the Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister on science policy, the scientists warn that unless GM crops are regulated at national, rather than at EU level, European agriculture could suffer because it will be unable to adopt GM crops.

̽��ֱ��new regulatory system should be modelled on the way pharmaceuticals are licensed in the UK, says the report, which was written by scientists at the universities of Cambridge and Reading, ̽��ֱ��Sainsbury Laboratory and Rothamsted Research.

According to lead author Professor Sir David Baulcombe of the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge: “Most concerns about GM crops have nothing to do with the technology, which is as safe as conventional breeding.

“They are more often related to the way that the technology is applied and whether it is beneficial for small scale farmers or for the environment. To address these concerns we need to have an evidence-based regulatory process that focuses on traits, independent of the technology that has been used to develop them.”

This is the approach used for regulating pharmaceuticals, regulators looking at the effects that new drugs have on patients, not at the technology used to develop them – which in many cases involves genetic modification.

̽��ֱ��report recommends the European Food Safety Authority retains an advisory role on risk and safety, similar to the European Medicines Agency for pharmaceuticals, but that approval is made on a national basis, as by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK.

“As there is no evidence for intrinsic environmental or toxicity risks associated with GM crops, it is not appropriate to have a regulatory framework that is based on the premise that GM crops are more hazardous than crop varieties produced by conventional plant breeding,” it says.

Since GM crops were first developed 30 years ago, major advances in basic science have led to new methods for transferring genes into specific locations in a crop plant's genome.

To respond to today's challenges of population growth, climate change and environmental degradation, as well as the need to develop biofuels and other materials, the report argues plant breeders in the UK – which is a world leader in plant genomics – need GM technology and a well-functioning R&D pipeline for both GM and non-GM crop varieties.

GM crops were first grown commercially in the USA in 1994, and in Europe in 1998. They are now grown in 28 countries worldwide, with GM crops currently accounting for 12% of global arable acreage. Most of that acreage is soybean and cotton, and 81% of the global acreage of these crops is sown to GM varieties.

However, even though 70% of protein fed to livestock in the European Union is imported as GM crop products, less than 0.1% of the global acreage of GM crops is cultivated in Europe. This, the report argues, is because experimentation and commercial release of GM crops in the EU is subject to much more stringent regulation than conventionally bred plants, with a slow and inefficient approval process.

As a result, multinational companies such as BASF and Monsanto have abandoned research to develop GM crops in Europe, and there has been a significant reduction in experimental field trials in the UK, with only one in 2012, compared with 37 in 1995.

To ensure a well-functioning research and development pipeline that can translate genomic research from the laboratory to the market place, the report also recommends establishing a new R&D capacity – PubGM.

PubGM would allow preliminary evaluation of the practical application of academic research findings to crops, including field testing new GM crops either in partnership with companies or so that the public sector could validate traits before engaging in partnerships with the private sector.

Leading plant scientists have called for major changes to the way GM crops are licensed.

Most concerns about GM crops have nothing to do with the technology, which is as safe as conventional breeding.

Professor Sir David Baulcombe

Jesper Dyhre Nielsen

Field and sky

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