Marie Curie Host Fellowships for Early Stage Training (EST)
sensing and the biological response to the environment in plants
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Marie Curie Host Fellowships for Early Stage Training (EST) |
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sensing and the biological response to the environment in plants |
three year and six month Fellowships from October 2006 | |
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The sensible Marie Curie Host Fellowship provides Early Stage Research Training in the use of post-genomic technologies to study the sensing and biological response to the environment in plants. The application of these technologies to agri-food and health research is essential for a strong European science base in these leading industrial sectors. |
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| The structured research programme will develop Fellow's lifelong learning and study skills, the ability to work with others in multidisciplinary groups and to develop into a creative research leader. | ||
| The research areas for Fellowships are summarised below. For more information, download the information booklet. | ||
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Nutrients: When nutrients are limited, changes occur in genome expression. Technologies such as gene cloning and characterisation, proteomics, transgenic organisms and bioinformatics will be used to study regulated degradation of mRNA in response to nutrient change. (Group leaders: Dr Mark Caddick, Dr Meriel Jones) |
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| Temperature: Sensing and response to temperature will be studied using biological imaging, transcriptomic analysis and reporter technologies. This will identify components in temperature sensing and signalling. (Group leaders: Dr Anthony Hall, Dr Mark Caddick) | ||
| Light: Perception of light, modulated by the circadian clock, results in effects on development of individual plants and populations. The role of photoreceptors, temperature and the clock will be studied genetically using biological imaging, bioinformatics, transgenic plants and transcriptomics. (Group leaders: Dr Anthony Hall, Dr James Hartwell) | ||
| Stress and Metabolism: The molecular basis of adaptations to saline soil will be studied. Research will focus on understanding the role of a transcription factor that modulates salt tolerance using transcriptomics, transgenic organisms, bioinformatics, proteomics and biological imaging. (Group leaders: Dr James Hartwell, Dr Meriel Jones). | ||
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Biotechnology: Directed evolution of genes can produce enzymes for pharmaceutical products. Genes for secondary metabolic enzymes will be modified for new substrate specificity using bioinformatics, molecular biology and chemical methods. (Group leaders: Dr Lesley Iwanejko, Dr Andy Bates) |
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Responses to Biological Damage: Insect predation leads to responses affecting plant growth and metabolites. Phenotypic and molecular methods including genomic, transcriptomic and metabolite analyses will be used to further characterise the Arabidopsis thaliana – Plutella xylostella interaction. (Group leaders: Prof Brian Tomsett, Dr Martin Mortimer) |
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Plant-plant interactions: Competitiveness is a key aspect of plant success and invasiveness. Experimental studies and plant growth models will be used to measure fitness and the impact of individual genes. The study will involve mathematical modelling, transgenic plants and growth studies. (Group leaders: Dr Martin Mortimer, Prof Brian Tomsett) |
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