Plant and Agricultural Sciences Fellowships at Bristol

Helen Harper

The Bristol Centre for Agricultural Innovation (BCAI) is offering an additional £50,000 to boost project funding for three individuals that are awarded mid-career Independent Research Fellowships at Bristol (such as BBSRC Discovery Fellowships & David Phillips Fellowships, Royal Society University Research Fellowships or UKRI Future Leader Fellowships). Those applying for earlier-career fellowships are eligible for an additional £5,000 of research funding, from BCAI, following a successful fellowship award.  Proposed research must fall within the remit of BCAI to be eligible for this additional funding (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/bcai/).

At Bristol, we benefit from excellent facilities and host a vibrant group of plant and agricultural scientists. Further information about plant and agricultural research at Bristol can be found at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/research/plant/  and information on current fellows and the support we offer: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/research/opportunities/fellowships.html

To be considered for BCAI and departmental support, prospective fellowship candidates are required to submit an expression of interest to helen.harper@bristol.ac.uk by 17th September 2019. Your application should consist of your CV, a covering letter (indicating which fellowship you wish to apply for and confirmation that you are eligible) and a research plan (up to 2 pages). We will select and invite candidates with potential to visit the department in October/November. Please contact Dr Helen Harper for any informal enquiries. We look forward to hearing from you.

 

BCAI undergraduate summer student 2018

Helen Harper

Fiona Belbin and Dr Helen Harper were awarded funds to employ a University of Bristol undergraduate student to conduct a 10-week summer placement in the labs in life sciences and in collaboration with Bristol vertical farming company LettUs Grow. Biology undergraduate Jess Bowers-Martin conducted research into the effects of photoperiod length upon growth, circadian rhythms and photosynthetic efficiency of lettuce in a vertical farming context.  “The opportunity to conduct independent research with the support of experts in the field has been invaluable to me, I have learnt so much during the course of the placement. I have particularly enjoyed researching the applications of vertical farming for addressing food security concerns and having the opportunity to plan my own research. Working with LettUs Grow and witnessing their passion has inspired me to pursue postgraduate study of plant science.” – Jess "The undergraduate project and associated support from the university has been hugely helpful. The hard work done by Jess has allowed us to accelerate our research program and she has been a fantastic colleague over the last few months. We are very excited to continue to build a relationship with Antony Dodd's lab and the University in the future."– Billy Rodgers, plant research at LettUs Grow. Jess has been supervised by Fiona Belbin, Dr Antony Dodd and Dr Helen Harper. This work was supported by the Bristol Centre for Agricultural Innovation and LettUs Grow.

 

Signal transduction and circadian regulation under natural conditions

Dora Cano-Ramirez and Dr Antony Dodd

BCAI have supported me to travel to the laboratory of collaborator Prof. Hiroshi Kudoh at the Center for Ecological Research in Kyoto University to perform deep analysis of a cell signalling pathway under natural conditions. The reason why we conducted this work was to gain new insights into how a signalling pathway that we identified in the laboratory functions under natural conditions. This is important to begin to translate processes studied in the laboratory that underpin plant survival into an agricultural context, to identify new candidate mechanisms for enhancing crop production.

 

Gene Editing Workshop

Beth Eldridge and Ashley Pridgeon

Over the 26-27th March, researchers from around the globe gathered at the University of Bristol for the GARNet Plant Gene Editing workshop, sponsored by BCAI and the New Phytologist Trust. At this workshop, attendees eagerly discussed topics relating to gene editing; these discussions not only encompassed the nitty-gritty details of how to edit stubborn plants (monocots and dicots alike!) but also novel uses of genetically-modified plants and the policies concerning their regulation. Alongside these discussions, researchers got the opportunity to view an array of scientific posters that sparked fruitful conversations.

Read the full article here.

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PI	Title	Date Requested	Amount
Lucia Primavesi	Equipment matters - the key to a good experiment	July 2019	£2556
Lucia Primavesi	Getting the most out of chlorophyll	July 2019	£1989.21
Guilda Varliero	Exploring new sequencing technology for agricultural research	July 2019	£24,974
Jane Memmott	Pollination in Nepal in a changing climate	July 2019
Keith Edwards / Gary Barker / Helen Harper	Assessing the diversity of UK apples with the Bristol set of single nucleotide Polymorphic markers	April 2019	£14,660
Ulrike Bauer / Helen Harper	Interdisciplinary Plant Wax Research Workshop	April 2019	£1486.80
Jill Harrison / Ken Birnbaum	FASEB Mechanisms in Pplant development meeting 2019	April 2019	£2560
Jill Harrison / Keith Edwards / Sophie Carpenter	Intercepting CLAVATA function to engineer larger ears in wheat	April 2019	£19,926.92
Rox Middleton	Why are blueberries blue?	April 2019	£17,165
Dr Helen Harper	Raising the profile of BCAI: annual budget for publicity material and workshops	Januray 2019	£5,000
Mr Tom Swift	The optimisation and field trials of carbon dots to enhance yields for a diverse range of crop in partnership with Beanstalk Agritech	January 2019	£23,411
Dr Lucia Primavesi	Updating and streamlining small autoclave equipment in Plant Sciences	January 2019	£3,417.99
Dr Sally Hobson / Miss Maggie Gamble	Replacement of Validated Waste Autoclave	January 2019	£15,546.60
Dr Lucia Primavesi	Updating and streamlining DNA electrophoresis equipment in Plant Sciences	October 2018	£1,881
Professor Innes Cuthill	The role of gloss in plant-pollinator signalling	October 2018	£18,224
Dr Sally Hobson	Replacement 40 x objective for confocal microscope	October 2018	£5,398.80
Dr Lucia Primavesi	Provision of specialist training to support and enhance the use of Wolfson Photosynthesis Suite	October 2018	£1,100
Dr Imogen Sparkes	Plant organellar 'roadmap' tool	October 2018	£66,434
Dr Jill Harrison	Fundamental requirements for branching in plants	October 2018	£46,248
Dr Heather Whitney	Bee Friendly Photonics	June 2018	£44,913
Professor Kerry Franklin	Controlling plant architecture in canopy shade	June 2018	£14,212
Dr Antony Dodd	Manipulating of chloroplast transcriptions to enhance horticulture	June 2018	£46,633
Professor Keith Edwards	Understanding & archiving the genetic diversity of long ashton research station cider apples	June 2018	£11,338
Dr Tom Oliver	Understanding the Influence of Carbon Nanoparticles in Enhancing Crop Yield	June 2018	£25,559
Miss Dora Cano-Ramirez	Signal transduction and circadian regulation under natural conditions	April 2018	£2,500
Professor Nicholas Roberts, Dr Lauren Sumner-Rooney	Lights Out: How anthropogenic light pollution affects the migration of crop pests	April 2018	£38,932.41
Dr Andy Bailey	Upgrade to LCMS facilities to support discovery of novel crop protection agents	February 2018	£19,040
Dr Jon Bridle	Roots and shoots: Genetic variation & plasticity in root investment and its consequences for shoot growth along an elevational and soil type gradient	February 2018	£14,500
Professor Jane Memmott	Ecosystem service provision in upland farming systems	February 2018	£9,860
Dr Anthony Dodd, Professor Gary Foster, Professor Keith Edwards	Bristol Plant Sciences Facilitator - Funding renewal	February 2018	£57,025
Christos Ioannou	Automated monitoring of fish from video in aquaculture systems	February 2018	£10,011.85
Dr Sally Hobson	Upgrade of PC and software controlling the Life Sciences Confocal Scanning Microscope	October 2017	£4,500
Professor Keith Edwards	A genome editing facility for the School of Biological Sciences	October 2017	£93,382
Professor Gareth Jones	Effective pollination of farmed tequila plants	October 2017	£7,000
Dr Hannah Rose	Agricultural production on the Asian steppe: limitations to sustainable intensifi-cation	October 2017	£9,025
Dr Jill Harrison	Emergency Autoclave bid	April 2017	£21,740.40
Dr Antony Dodd, Dr Heather Whitney and Professor Alistair Hetherington	Emergency repair to the infra-red gas analyser in Wolfson Photosynthesis Suite	April 2017	£2,700
Dr Helen Harper	Plant and Agricultural Sciences Fellowship Day	April 2017	£4,620
Dr Katherine Baldock	Improving lawns and grassland for insect pollinators	April 2017	£5,570
Professor Gary Foster and  Dr Andy Bailey	Biocontrol of Armillaria - PhD Studentship with RHS spread over 3 years	April 2017	£43,251
Mr Tom Pitman	Replacement of 2 Purite units in GroDome and OPH greenhouses	April 2017	£5,540
Professor Alistair Hetherington	Mitigating the effects of anthropogenic increases in atmospheric CO2 on wheat grain Fe and Zn by increasing stomatal transpiration	December 2016	£8,900
Dr Heather Whitney	Plant and Crop Phenomics Facility Pilot	December 2016	£28,051
Professor Jane Memmott	Barcoding parasitoids in agricultural grasslands	December 2016	£9,566
Dr Sacha Przewieslik-Allen	Monogram 2017 contribution to Annual Workshop	December 2016	£5,000
Professor Keith Edwards	Creation of a transcription factor library of genome edited wheat plants	December 2016	£9,750
Mr Anthony Crawford and Mr Tom Pitman	Contingency plan in the event of a catastrophic heating failure in the LSB GroDome	December 2016	£1,500
Mr Anthony Crawford	Replacement of -80 freezers for LSB	December 2016	£8,000
Professor Keith Edwards	Equipment that will enhance the Facilities capacity to undertake large genomics-based projects	December 2016	£10,000
Mr Donald Fraser	Innovations in Plant Science to Feed a Changing World	December 2016	£4,881
Dr Katherine Baldock & Dr Gregory Sutton	Understanding the effect of power lines on local plants and pollinators	December 2016	£3,833
Dr Marian Yallop & Dr Gary Barker	Solutions to Taste and Odour Problems in UK Drinking Waters (STOP)	November 2016	£10,642