Leveraging the plant genome to increase crop yield and quality

Opportunities for plant science to contribute to global food security include increasing the yield and quality of crops, making plants less susceptible to pests and and more resistant to herbicides, and enabling maximal crop productivity in sub-optimal growth conditions. Finding and implementing these solutions is a top priority for governments and scientists worldwide, and has been articulated as a key BBSRC strategic objective. Wheat, rice and coarse grains such as maize are the most important crops for human food production; therefore increasing grain production sustainably is a critically important strategic and scientific objective.  Bread wheat has an exceptionally complex genome comprised of three independently- maintained genomes, each of which is approximately 6 Gb- more that the entire human genome. The scale and complexity of this genome require a large coordinated effort and the development and application of new technologies.

Another area of scientific research is the exploration of genetically modified plant proteins. Cry proteins for example are a class of insecticidal endotoxins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that are non-toxic to mammals, making them ideal for conferring insect resistance to plants.

This webinar will describe how innovative research tools from reagents to sample prep and nucleic acid quantificationare facilitating insightful scientific experimentation to leverage the plant genome.