Objective
Agriculture depends on breeding. Breeders try to combining desirable and eliminating unfavourable traits of crop plants. Changes in genetic linkage are based on meiotic recombination. Although techniques for the transfer of single traits have been developed, resulting in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), hardly any effort has been undertaken to control the exchange between parental genomes as such. By applying new molecular tools to control recombination the current project aims to establish a new kind of ¿designed¿ plant breeding. Thus, not only transfer or elimination of specific traits should become possible in a programmable way, but also the access to the complete gene pool of natural species and its widening by crossing in closely related species should become feasible. Suppression of recombination should result in an apomixis-like propagation of elite cultivars. Mainly two different levels of control will be addressed in the project: the induction of recombination at predefined specific sites in the genome and the regulation of the level of genome-wide exchange. For the former approach we will apply specifically tailored sequence-specific zinc-finger and meganucleases. Global changes should be achieved by modulating the expression of factors involved in the resolution of recombination intermediates. As the strategy relies on the exploitation of the natural mechanism of recombination, biotechnologically improved plants without transgenes will be obtained after outcrossing. Thus, public concerns raised by GMOs brought out in the field should be avoided. As recent technical improvements make the elucidation of genomic sequences possible at moderate cost and time requirements, the setup of ¿designed¿ breeding should become especially useful in the near future.
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: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture agronomy plant breeding
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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.
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.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2010-AdG_20100317
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.
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.
Host institution
76131 Karlsruhe
Germany
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.