How can GMO be used to increase yields?
Louise Petri is a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen. She studies plant development and how knowledge about the functioning of proteins can be applied to obtain beneficial traits.
Department & Group: Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences (PLEN), PBIO
Supervisors: Fernando Geu-Flores and Stephan Wenkel
Dissertation Title (as for now 😉):
Investigating the role of microProteins in plant development
Topics in brief
Tomato plants: How to create higher yields on the same area of land?
A microProtein contributes to the control of how many flowers a tomato plant produces, the architecture of these might therefore impact the yield. MicroProteins act by binding to bigger proteins and hereby preventing them from dimerising* and as a result inhibit their function. If those microproteins were stopped, reduced or slowed down, tomato plants would produce more flowers and fruit without it being detrimental to the plant.
*Dimerisation: the process of molecules joining together via bonds
Good timing: How to change flowering time in plants?
The protein FIONA has shown to be involved in the control of flowering time in Arabidopsis. A plant you have maybe seen during nature walks. By understanding what controls flowering in Arabidopsis that knowledge could be transferred to other plants to control their flowering time. That could for example be useful in the harvesting of alfalfa to overcome the so-called ‘cutting dilemma’. The cutting dilemma describes the trade-off between a lot of vegetation (late harvest) and the increased risk of the plants to start flowering, which is unfavorable for their later use as forage. By postponing the flowering, farmers could harvest greater yields.
Apart from that we talked about:
- Start-up ideas and patenting (here a link to the programme (PATHWAYS) that Louise mentioned)
- Why it’s okay to take detours
- The pros and cons or GMO
Louise’s advice:
Don’t forget the long-term perspective.
Louise’s publications:
Louise’s funding
DFF-Research Project
If you would like to get in touch with Louise check LinkedIn
Thanks for listening 🙂
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