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SUMMARY:Enhancing Rubisco Catalysis Improves Plant Growth - Professor Spen
 cer Whitney\, Australian National University
DTSTART:20220310T130000Z
DTEND:20220310T140000Z
UID:TALK165100@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Pallavi Singh
DESCRIPTION:The rate of photosynthesis and plant growth is often rate limi
 ted by the activity of the CO2-fixing enzyme Ribulose bisphosphate carboxy
 lase oxygenase (Rubisco). Over half a century there has been significant e
 ffort to understand the catalytic chemistry and biogenesis properties of t
 his enzyme towards identifying ways to improve its carboxylation propertie
 s.\n\nKinetic diversity screens have identified natural variants of Rubisc
 o with properties beneficial to photosynthesis in C3-plants like rice\, wh
 eat and canola\, however there are impediments to introducing these change
 s into crops. In many cases the levels of catalytic improvement are also i
 nsufficient to translate to real improvements in growth. In this talk I wi
 ll discuss new synthetic biology\, plastome transformation and directed ev
 olution methods that have proved a more feasible pathway towards generatin
 g the step change in Rubisco performance needed to visibly improve plant p
 roductivity.\n\nContact reception@plantsci.cam.ac.uk for a Zoom link prior
  to a talk if you are not on our mailing list. Due to having to go online\
 , we are restricting the talks to University of Cambridge and alumni to ke
 ep them as informal as possible.
LOCATION:Online
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