Descripción del proyecto
Un método innovador de edición del genoma para el fitomejoramiento de precisión
El aumento de la población mundial combinado con los efectos del clima en la agricultura han ejercido una presión adicional sobre la seguridad alimentaria. Los precios de récord recientes de los alimentos se han sumado a esta crisis mundial de inseguridad alimentaria y desnutrición. La ampliación del conocimiento fundamental sobre las enzimas y la regulación genética en las plantas respaldará la capacidad científica para mejorar la producción y abordar esta crisis. En este contexto y con el apoyo de las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, el equipo del proyecto COLORnamental aprovechará un método innovador de cultivo de precisión hortícola basado en la edición genética y centrado en el color de las flores. Sus resultados tendrán aplicaciones de amplio alcance, desde la reproducción ornamental de hermosas plantas con flores hasta la mejora de la seguridad alimentaria mundial.
Objetivo
The COLORnamental team comprises a promising Experienced Researcher (ER) in the field of horticulture and molecular breeding and her future supervising team, i.e. an academic beneficiary in Austria, an associated partner from the commercial horticultural industry in Germany and an academic associated partner in Germany hosting a 6 month secondment. Together they have defined an innovative and challenging research project that offers a well-balanced mixture of research at the interface of fundamental and applied research addressing promising opportunities in the non-academic sector and scientific hot-spots in plant research simultaneously. An innovative breeding approach will exploit flower colour as an established model to implement for the first time the use of MAD7 nucleases in ornamental breeding, and protoplast transformation to modify the bract colour of poinsettia. The genome editing approach addresses the substrate specificity of dihydrolflavonol 4-reductase (DFR) and will promote the accumulation of orange pelargonidin based pigments. Flavonoids, including the colourful anthocyanins, are the most important secondary metabolites, contributing a broad range of physiological functions in plants and humans, the latter when consumed as plant derived food. This makes them an attractive topic for industry and academia across many research fields. The pathway has always served as an important model to establish fundamental scientific knowledge of enzymes, gene regulation in plants and a variety of evolutionary processes. This will allow the ER to augment her expertise with knowledge that is seen as the future of food security, while herself imparting a new perspective to her hosts. A tailor-made training plan, composed of scientific key transferable skills elements for public and private sector employment (research management, presentation and language skills) was designed to empower the ER to move up the career ladder.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-AG-UN - HORIZON Unit GrantCoordinador
1040 Wien
Austria