Warwick University has opened a new gene-editing research centre that will draw on the UK Vegetable Gene Bank, held at Warwick Crop Centre, Wellesbourne.
Based at the university’s main campus, the £1.5m centre includes a tissue culture laboratory and controlled environment growing-on facilities. It was funded by a grant from the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust and a donation from the estate of Jim Brewster, a research scientist at Wellesbourne in the 1980s who was acknowledged as a world expert on onions.
The UK Vegetable Gene Bank was established at Wellesbourne when it was the National Vegetable Research Station and conserves, as seed, the genetic diversity of wild ancestors and old varieties of brassicas, carrot, lettuce and onion.
“Researchers will be applying precision gene-editing approaches to key UK horticulture crops to improve disease resistance, enhance nutritional value and increase resilience to climate change,” said Murray Grant, professor of food security at Warwick. “Aside from increased yields, there are significant environmental benefits to be gained by growing crops with reduced needs for pesticides and water.”
He said the charitable trust funding had been designed to support UK agriculture and the initial choice of crops to be worked on was driven by the research under way at Wellesbourne, as well as the resources in the gene bank. “The initial focus is on enhanced disease resistance and editing work has just begun in leafy brassica and tomato,” he said. “We are developing a project for lettuce improvement and have an interest in modulating flowering time; and are working on regeneration protocols for carrot, onion and basil.”
He added: “We also aim to provide expertise and pump-priming support for collaborative projects with other interested parties.”
The centre will also train researchers in vegetable plant tissue culture and gene-editing techniques with Jim Brewster scholarships awarded to PhD students.
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