A new research centre, using gene-editing technology to improve vegetable crops, has opened at the University of Warwick.
The Elizabeth Creak Horticultural Technology Centre (ECHTC) is a £1.5 million facility, which will use techniques such as gene-editing to develop vegetable crops.
The research undertaken at the new facility will address issues relating to disease resistance, crop yield, adaptability to climate change and nutritional value in horticultural plants.
The work should also help with the key global challenges of climate change and feeding the world’s growing population.
The new research centre will add to the university’s expertise in crops and plant breeding.
University of Warwick
The ECHTC is part of a suite of facilities for research and technology in horticulture at the University of Warwick.
The university already has responsibility for conserving genetic diversity of vegetable crops through world-leading collections of carrot, lettuce and onion seed, and joint responsibility for brassica collections hosted by the UK Vegetable Gene Bank (UKVGB) at the university’s Wellesbourne campus.
The creation of the ECHTC is aimed at helping further plant scientists’ understanding of a range of questions about plant growth.
The new research centre will also train future research scientists in vegetable tissue culture and gene-editing techniques.
Murray Grant, the Elizabeth Creak chair in food security at the University of Warwick, commented:
“With food one of the top issues on a global agenda, and in the year that the Genetic Technology Bill is going through the UK Parliament and opening up our ability to use gene-editing technology, we have a pressing need to grow and harness skills and expertise to help us improve food systems, adapt to changing environments and help solve growing global problems.
“Gene-editing is a process by which scientists, using prior knowledge, can make small modifications to an existing gene or genes which can confer valuable traits in plants, such as disease resistance or enhanced drought tolerance.
“These changes simply target the plants genetic blueprint without introducing any foreign material. Gene-editing can shorten the long process of traditional plant breeding where varieties are crossed over many generations to achieve the same goal,” he added.
Researchers at the ECHTC will be applying precision genetic-editing approaches to key UK horticulture crops to improve disease resistance, enhance nutritional value and increase resilience to climate change.
“Aside from increased yields, there are significant environmental benefits to be gained by growing crops with reduced needs for pesticides and water,” Grant concluded.
