Press release - 30/08/2023 Soil Salinity: Wild Grapevine Defends Itself Rising sea levels due to climate change and artificial irrigation cause soil salinity to increase. This has a negative impact on agriculture, including viticulture. The plants die, yields decrease. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have therefore studied a wild grapevine of higher salt tolerance. Their goal is to identify the genetic factors that make the grapevine resilient.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/soil-salinity-wild-grapevine-defends-itself
Press release - 25/07/2023 Green Genetic Engineering: Making Mendel’s Dream Come True with Molecular Scissors Molecular biologist Professor Holger Puchta from KIT is granted funding within a Reinhart Koselleck Project by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for work on specific restructuring of plant genomes. Puchta, a pioneer of green genetic engineering, has used molecular scissors in plants for 30 years now. His new project is aimed at using the CRISPR/Cas method to freely combine genes in crops, thus making Gregor Mendel’s dream come true.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/green-genetic-engineering-making-mendels-dream-come-true-molecular-scissors
Press release - 22/05/2023 How plants use sugar to produce roots Along with sugar reallocation, a basic molecular mechanism within plants controls the formation of new lateral roots. An international team of plant biologists has demonstrated that it is based on the activity of a certain factor, the target of rapamycin (TOR) protein.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/how-plants-use-sugar-produce-roots
Diatoms as a biorefinery - 05/05/2023 Microalgae: sustainable chemical production in a mini factory Renewable raw materials that can be used as alternatives to fossil resources already exist. However, to turn them into everyday products, plant oils and other renewable raw materials not only have to be extracted, but often have to undergo complex chemical processing. Researchers at the University of Konstanz have now converted microalgae cells into tiny refineries to produce and upgrade raw materials, creating a supply of sustainable chemicals.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/microalgae-sustainable-chemical-production-mini-factory
Press release - 03/05/2023 Rapeseed makes more than just oil – it’s a source of proteins too At the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP in Leuna, Germany, representatives from politics, research and industry opened a novel pilot plant for the mild processing of rapeseed to increase the added-value potential of rape as a raw material.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/nicht-nur-oel-auch-proteine-aus-raps
Vaccination for plants - 23/01/2023 Dialogue instead of a chemical maze – new strategy for sustainable crop protection Climate change creates stress. This provides an opportunity for pests to exploit plant weaknesses and reproduce. For the infested plant, this can be catastrophic and often fatal. But instead of continuing to protect harvest yields with toxic substances as before, the transnational DialogProTec project is now taking a completely new approach: researchers want to intervene in the communication between plants and pests to keep them healthy.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/dialogue-instead-chemical-maze-new-strategy-sustainable-crop-protection
CRISPR/Cas9 and genetic engineering laws - 27/11/2019 Transgene-free plant breeding using genome editing Plant geneticists from Tübingen have used genome deletion to breed a variety of tomato that is resistant to powdery mildew. The CRISPR/Cas9 technology that they used enabled them to achieve this in a relatively short period of time. They also demonstrated beyond any doubt that the new tomato variety contains no foreign DNA and is indistinguishable from naturally occurring deletion mutants.https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/transgene-free-plant-breeding-using-genome-editing