Exploiting synergies in barley research
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Dundee
Department Name: School of Life Sciences
Abstract
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Organisations
- University of Dundee (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Melbourne (Collaboration)
- University of Adelaide (Collaboration)
- University of Queensland (Collaboration)
- Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (Project Partner)
- Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (Project Partner)
- Australian Research Council (Project Partner)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Project Partner)
Publications
Houston K
(2020)
Barley sodium content is regulated by natural variants of the Na+ transporter HvHKT1;5.
in Communications biology
Langridge P
(2019)
Harnessing the potential of germplasm collections.
in Nature genetics
Marcotuli I
(2015)
Genome Wide Association Mapping for Arabinoxylan Content in a Collection of Tetraploid Wheats.
in PloS one
Marcotuli I
(2016)
Genetic Diversity and Genome Wide Association Study of ß-Glucan Content in Tetraploid Wheat Grains.
in PloS one
Mascher M
(2017)
A chromosome conformation capture ordered sequence of the barley genome.
in Nature
Pourkheirandish M
(2015)
Evolution of the Grain Dispersal System in Barley.
in Cell
Schreiber M
(2014)
The barley genome sequence assembly reveals three additional members of the CslF (1,3;1,4)-ß-glucan synthase gene family.
in PloS one
Schwerdt JG
(2015)
Evolutionary Dynamics of the Cellulose Synthase Gene Superfamily in Grasses.
in Plant physiology
Description | This is a partnering award that has allowed us to maintain and strengthen links with several groups in Australia. We have now published a raft of papers relating to genes involved in barley cell wall biosynthesis and a paper on transcriptional networks in the developing grain. The PI just received a collaborative award from the ARC (with Prof. Peter Langridge) that will extend their collaboration on recombination in large genome crops and have submitted an application to IWYP. The UUKi Rutherford fund will se a number of Australian ECRs from Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide come to the university of Dundee for between 1 and 12 months. Several medium-high impact papers are being written for publication in peer reviewed journals and i expect these to emerge in press in the coming 12 months. Further visits from Dundee to Adelaide were completed during the funding period by the PI and ECRs. In the last year we have successfully collaborated in two successful ARC Discovery awards - one to extend the work on Beta-Glucan with University of LaTrobe, one to explore domesticating wild species with Adelaide. We have a new Joint PhD student starting summer 2021 with Adelaide, Dundee and Nottingham. |
Exploitation Route | I anticipate further bi-lateral exchange visits by young early career scientists in particular, and continue discussions with Matt Tucker, Rachel Burton, Stuart Roy, Matt Gilliham, Peter Langridge, Ken Chalmers and others about exchange visits with Dundee. The PDRA on the ARC discovery grant to myself and Peter Langridge came to Dundee for 3 months in early summer 2018 and some of those from Dundee that have already benefitted from the award did return to complete work started when there previously (e.g. Ruth Hamilton). We have submitted further joint applications to the ARC for funding and are my earlier career colleages have a current application for an International partnering award to BBSRC to maintain andd extend these - and broader - interactions into the future. |
Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Education Energy Environment Healthcare |
Description | Several members of the Dundee group (Houston, Zhang, Schreiber, Giminez, Waugh, Booth, Oakey, Hamilton) have benefitted from stays in Adelaide and Brisbane and R. Burton, M. Tucker, A. Hassan, G.Fincher, J. Schwerdt, P. Langridge, N. Betts, H. Collins time in Dundee. Despite fundiing running out, further exchange visits will be planned for the coming years. For everyone involved this has been a fantastic learning experience (especially the younger scientists) and we will build on these relationships to form new collaborations into the future. The relationships established over this period led to Claire Halpin and I winning an UUKi Rutherford award worth £150K to allow ECRs from Australia to come and work in the UK for 1 - 12 months between march 2018 and march 2019. Last year I applied for a further international partnering award to extend the established links, this time with a $10K commitment from the Waite Institute and from the Grains Research and Development Council (GRDC) to fund PI's and ECRs from GRDC funded projects to visit the UK. It was unsuccessful. Last year my colleagues (Sarah McKim and others) successfully applied for a partnering award to extend the links they have mad during this initial award. Since the beginning of the partnering award I (RW) have been fortunate to be a co-investigator on four successful ARC discovery grants (1 Melbourne, 1 laTrobe, two Adelaide) and an NCRIS award with the Adelaide Group. I also have a joint PhD student (Adelaide/Nottingham/JHI) who started in 2021. Peter langridge is a Co-PI on our recently funded 'BBSRC response mode project 'R-Evolve'. The overall impact of this initial award has therefore been very significant indeed. |
First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Education,Energy,Environment |
Impact Types | Societal Economic |
Description | AHDB research call |
Amount | £65,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 21130015 Integrated platforms for barley breeding and genetic research (INTEGRA-2) |
Organisation | Agricultural and Horticulture Development Board |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2016 |
End | 03/2017 |
Description | ERC Advanced Grant |
Amount | € 2,500,000 (EUR) |
Funding ID | ERC-2014-ADG 669182 |
Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 11/2016 |
End | 10/2020 |
Description | UUKI Rutherford fund - strategic partner grants |
Amount | £150,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | RF-2018-30 |
Organisation | Universities UK |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2018 |
End | 03/2019 |
Description | Barley Away Days |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We Hosted Prof Rachel Burton at our Barley Away Days in Dunkeld (3 day meeting) where she gave a talk about her latest research |
Collaborator Contribution | Rachel attended the BAD and interacted with students and postdocs. She gave an excellent presentation of current research in her group and judged the poster competition and short talks. |
Impact | Strengthened relationships with the cell walls group in Adelaide |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | CSLF activity |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Miriam Schreiber visited Adelaide for 2 months to test the activity of three new CslF genes she identified in the released barley genome assembly |
Collaborator Contribution | Hosted Miriam and taught her how to do transient assays in nicotiana and how to assay for mixed linkage beta glucan |
Impact | Outputs listed as Schreiber et al under BB/J014869/1 outputs |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | Cell Walls 2 |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Kelly Houston spent 1 month in Adelaide completing work for a paper, interacting with joint students and planning further collaborative research |
Collaborator Contribution | Rachel Burton and Matt Tucker hosted Kelly Houston in Adelaide and worked on completing work for a paper, interacting with joint students and planning further collaborative research. |
Impact | paper outputs are listed under the submission for BB/J014869/1 |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | Cell walls 1 |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Kelly Houston spent 3 months in Adelaide in 2015 and 1 month in 2017. The visits allowed us to extend collaborative work on barley plant cell walls. New Joint Student between Kelly Houston (Dundee) and Matt Tucker/Rachel Burton (Adelaide) has recently been awarded. |
Collaborator Contribution | Hosted Kelly, gave access to all research facilities and resources, Jointly formulated PhD position, shared materials for joint publications |
Impact | We have published many joint papers listed under outputs of BB/J014869/1. We have collaborative grants currently under consideration in both UK (BBSRC) and Australia (ARC) |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Centre of Excellence |
Organisation | University of Melbourne |
Department | The Peter Cook Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage Research |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | RW visited the Annual Cell Walls Conference in Hahndorf, gave a talk and planned joint research proposal for ARC. |
Collaborator Contribution | Joint sharing of unpublished data, writing ARC grant application with Houston and Waugh as Co-I's |
Impact | Grant submitted to ARC in Feb 2017 |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Exploiting synergies |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | I jointly wrote a grant with Peter Langridge to ARC as a Co-Investigator. It was funded this year but has not yet started. We did this remotely and during face to face meetings in both Adelaide (funding for me by this award) and Europe (funding for Langridge from Adelaide) |
Collaborator Contribution | We jointly conceived and wrote the applicatioin |
Impact | A AU$570,000 ARC Grant to look at aspects of meiosis and recombination in wheat and barley |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Meiosis |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | I was a Principle Investigator on a successful ARC Discovery grant to look at meiosis and recombination in cereals. Project was based in Adelaide |
Collaborator Contribution | They were the grant holders. The PDRA employed on the grant spent 2 x 3 months working in Dundee (Funded by The DP grant). Dundee staff visited Adelaide. |
Impact | Scientific papers published and in prep. |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | Network analysis |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Collaboration was to develop an understanding of gene networks involved in very early grain development - with a particular focus on the cellularisation of the barley endosperm. We did microarray and network analysis |
Collaborator Contribution | Provision of v. early cellular material, validation (qPCR) and biological interpretation of cellular networks, particularly in relation to the newly forming cell wall. |
Impact | Nice paper in Plant Physiology http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/170/3/1549.full.pdf |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | Phylogeny |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We trained and assisted Julian Schwerdt from Adelaide on Phylogenetic analysis |
Collaborator Contribution | Julian made several visits to Dundee where he worked with Houston, Marshall, Wright and Waugh on establishing robust sequence based molecular phylogenies |
Impact | http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/early/2015/05/21/pp.15.00140 Paper published from outcome of collaboration |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | Recombination in wheat and barley |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | I was a Co-Investigator on a successful ARC discovery grant on meiosis and recombination in wheat and barley with Prof. Peter Langridge. The award will use resources generated in my research program for mutual benefit. It was developed largely through the funding awarded for an Australia partnering award which has seen multiple visits in each direction over the past 4 years. |
Collaborator Contribution | The partners will receive ALL of the funding save some money for travel to meetings throughout the project. The partners will provide lab, consumables funding and all administrative resources required to execute the project objectives. The funding allows the University of Adelaide to employ a PDRA and technician for three years. |
Impact | Still too early. Project only started a few months ago. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Speed Breeding |
Organisation | University of Queensland |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Allan Booth (Dundee) spent three months working with Lee Hickey in UQ to learn the speed breeding technique (barley seed to seed in 60 days. He has now established a parallel facility in Dundee and this is being incorporated into on going projects and funding applications |
Collaborator Contribution | Lee hosted Allan for 3 months and kindly shared all steps of the speed breeding approach. |
Impact | Implementation of Speed Breeding in Dundee University and JHI |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Student Placement |
Organisation | University of Adelaide |
Department | School of Agriculture, Food and Wine |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Joint PhD student Guillermo Giminez spent 3 months working in the group of Matt Tucker in the cell walls centre of excellence building reported gene constructs for transformation and testing them in vivo |
Collaborator Contribution | Direct supervision of Guillermo in building reported gene constructs for transformation and how to test them in vivo |
Impact | Guillermo is still pursuing his PhD. Publications are planned but not yet written. |
Start Year | 2014 |