Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Simultaneous multi-pathway engineering in crop plants through combinatorial genetic transformation: Creating nutritionally biofortified cereal grains for food security

Objective

BIOFORCE has a highly ambitious applied objective: to create transgenic cereal plants that will provide a near-complete micronutrient complement (vitamins A, C, E, folate and essential minerals Ca, Fe, Se and Zn) for malnourished people in the developing world, as well as built-in resistance to insects and parasitic weeds. This in itself represents a striking advance over current efforts to address food insecurity using applied biotechnology in the developing world. We will also address fundamental mechanistic aspects of multi-gene/pathway engineering through transcriptome and metabolome profiling. Fundamental science and applied objectives will be achieved through the application of an exciting novel technology (combinatorial genetic transformation) developed and patented by my research group. This allows the simultaneous transfer of an unlimited number of transgenes into plants followed by library-based selection of plants with appropriate genotypes and phenotypes. All transgenes integrate into one locus ensuring expression stability over multiple generations. This proposal represents a new line of research in my laboratory, founded on incremental advances in the elucidation of transgene integration mechanisms in plants over the past two and a half decades. In addition to scientific issues, BIOFORCE address challenges such as intellectual property, regulatory and biosafety issues and crucially how the fruits of our work will be taken up through philanthropic initiatives in the developing world while creating exploitable opportunities elsewhere. BIOFORCE is comprehensive and it provides a complete package that stands to make an unprecedented contribution to food security in the developing world, while at the same time generating new knowledge to streamline and simplify multiplex gene transfer and the simultaneous modification of multiple complex plant metabolic pathways

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

ERC-2008-AdG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant

Host institution

UNIVERSIDAD DE LLEIDA
EU contribution
€ 2 290 046,00
Address
Placa Victor Siurana 1 1
25003 Lleida
Spain

See on map

Region
Este Cataluña Lleida
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0