Objective Food security is one of the biggest challenges of our century. Climate change and an increasing human population call forcrop plants that are resistant to abiotic stresses, such as heat and drought while maintaining high productivity and nutritionalvalues. This will require rational strategies for metabolic engineering of crop plants. Fundamental to this engineeringchallenge is the modelling of leaf metabolism. Leaves are the main site of photosynthesis and therefore the interface wherecarbon from the environment is assimilated to synthesise and maintain cellular components. Plants have developed differentmechanisms to fix carbon: C3, C4, and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM). While C3 photosynthesis is the mostwidespread form, the latter two exhibit higher efficiency at higher temperatures or drought, respectively. Current large-scalemetabolic models lack a mathematical description of processes on the interface between the environment and the leaf. Toaddress this problem, I intend to devise a computational approach that couples genome-scale metabolic modeling to theenvironment by explicitly modeling gas-water exchange. These multi-layer models will help address fundamental questionsabout the operation of C4 photosynthesis and CAM. The workplan comprises two research objectives: 1) Coupling CO2-water gas exchange models with multi-timestep diel models: The CO2-water exchange models will allow changingenvironmental conditions during the diel cycle (e.g. temperature and humidity cycles) to be coupled to the behavior of themetabolic models. These environment-coupled models will be used to address the second research objective: 2) Model-driven studies of C4 and CAM metabolism: The extended diel models will be used to investigate metabolic engineeringstrategies for improved productivity under high temperatures (e.g. by introducing C4) and to understand the trade-offbetween productivity and water-use efficiency in both C3 and CAM plants. Fields of science engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologymetabolic engineeringsocial scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivitymedical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutritionnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changesnatural sciencesbiological sciencesbotany Keywords metabolic modeling leaf metabolism in-silico C3 photosynthesis C4 photosynthesis Crassulacean Acid Metabolism heat tolerance drought tolerance Flux Balance Analysis biophysical model Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2017 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Net EU contribution € 183 454,80 Address WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES OX1 2JD Oxford United Kingdom See on map Region South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 183 454,80
