Jazmin Ramos Madrigal

Plant domestication allowed the rise of complex societies. Large efforts have been made to understand the evolutionary processes behind plant domestication. However, a key aspect of plant domestication remains mainly unexplored: the role of the root microbiome. In this project, we will use legumes to study the coevolution of the plant-root microbiome interaction throughout the domestication process. As legumes recruit beneficial soil bacteria into specialised root structures, they provide and ideal contained system to study the plants and their microbiomes jointly through time. Using modern and ancient genomes, we will study wild and domesticated plants and their root microbes, characterise their domestication history, identify selection signatures correlating with changes in root microbial diversity, identify co-dispersion patterns, and develop an integrative model for plant domestication. By reconstructing the evolutionary history of plants’ beneficial associations with microbes, we will contribute to drawing a blueprint for replicating solutions evolution came up with, ultimately bringing us closer to robust sustainable agriculture.

Henriette Lyng Røder

A green transition to increased consumption of plant-based food products in our diet is pivotal for sustaining an increasing world population and mitigating climate change. Yet, many plant products are lost because of growth of unwanted microorganisms, requiring out-of-the-box thinking to establish new solutions. Because it is impossible to keep our plant products free of microorganisms, the goal of BIOBARRIER is to find out which microorganisms can be added to our fresh plant products to increase their shelf life instead of trying to remove all microorganisms – both the ones that are harmful and the ones that may safely help us. We will achieve this by creating specifically designed bacterial communities with beneficial properties that can be placed on fruits and vegetables to repel harmful microbes. Together with new beneficial bacterial uses such as probiotics, we will contribute to shifting consumers’ perspective on bacteria towards it being a positive addition to everyday products.

Bjørn Panyella Pedersen

The project will uncover the secrets of how plants transport sugars and the hormone auxin across membranes. This process is crucial for proper plant growth and development, but despite extensive research, the details of how this functions remain unclear.
Here we explore the 3D structures of key transporters to help us understand how substrates – including herbicides which utilize these transport systems – affect plant growth. This will allow us to predict and modify plant responses to changing environments, with significant implications for agriculture and sustainability.

Beyond practical applications, this research will provide a breakthrough in our understanding of fundamental plant metabolism, specifically in maintaining sugar and hormone balance. This knowledge is essential for addressing global challenges, such as ensuring sufficient food production while minimizing environmental impact. In essence, this project holds a key to a more sustainable and food-secure future.

Oliver Van Aken

Perhaps surprisingly, plants are sensitive to mechanical stimulation caused by wind, water drops, and gentle touching by insects or neighboring plants. Mechanical stimuli can change the plant’s physical appearance and flowering. ‘Touching’ may also increase plant resistance to pathogens, insects and abiotic stresses by stimulating its defense systems.

Very little is known about how plants detect mechanical stimuli, and how they induce physiological and molecular changes. Mechanical stimulation also has clear application potential, as controlled rolling has been widely used in Japanese grain agriculture to improve yield for centuries. The practical usefulness in Nordic agriculture is, however, unknown. This project aims to reveal the processes that control touch responses in plants, and exploit the potential of controlled mechanical treatment to improve sustainable agriculture.

Hussam Hassan Nour-Eldin

Anders Hafren

A striking global outlook change that manifested during the last decade is the reality of a changing climate and uncertainty of future. Sustainability and resilience are among the top priorities in plant science today, and for a reason. Despite that plants are master adapters to harsh environments and diseases through evolution and selection, this constellation does not apply to our food producing crops within an accelerated climate change frame. Thus, methods and knowledge of molecular mechanisms by which we can feasibly engineer our crops to meet these future challenges are urgently needed. Within this large global sustainability purpose, our predicted way to essential discoveries lies within the largely unknown lives of viruses and more precisely how they have learned through their amazing capacity for evolution to engineer their plant host. In particular, we hope that our focus on viral manipulations of plant resilience mechanisms may pave the way to climate, disease and virus resilient crops.

Pablo Cardenas

Most of our food comes from only a dozen of plants, making our food system highly vulnerable to plant pests, diseases and climate change. In nature, there are thousands of plants with potential to be part of a future diverse and resilient agriculture, but many of them contain unpleasant compounds. In Back to the Future, I will bring from the past and develop the wild plant Chenopodium album as a new crop. Its seeds have high protein content and were eaten in Denmark during prehistorical times, but contain bitter and anti-nutritional chemical compounds called saponins. I have established a unique collection of C. album from all over Denmark and characterized their protein and saponin contents. In Back to the Future, I will combine the latest molecular, agricultural and food sciences and technologies to understand the molecular basis of saponin biosynthesis, its bitterness and plant domestication to develop C. album into a valuable plant for future food security.

Quentin Geissmann

Agriculture is the most impactful human activity, inevitably leading to environmental issues. One such crisis is the unprecedented rate at which we deplete our arable lands by growing crops without restoring soils. The trends of soil loss threaten our food security and, to preserve lands, we must transition to a more “circular” agriculture, which returns nutrients to the field. In nature, specialised decomposers implement circularity by recycling organic matter. Among them, earthworms, one of the most abundant animal groups, are pivotal. However, since they hide below ground, scientists only know them very little. This project will finally open the black box by developing modern and original tools, based on sensors and artificial intelligence, that uncover the behaviour and ecology of earthworms. Understanding these cryptic creatures in depth will allow us to best utilise their agricultural services while protecting these key players to preserve and restore our soils.

Nanna Bjarnholt

Fungal diseases devastate crops worldwide and challenge global food security. They are unpredictable and difficult to manage, which is exacerbated by climate change. Cereal staple crops are strongly affected by Fusarium species, which both decrease yields and introduce harmful toxins to infected grain. The main toxin, DON, can be detoxified by plants, sometimes contributing to resistance to the fungi, but the detoxification can be unstable in the guts of humans and animals that may still suffer adverse effects from eating infected grain. A new mechanism for Fusarium resistance via DON detoxification was recently discovered in a wild grass, but it is unknown if it is stable. The key hypothesis of CerealGSTs is that GST mediated detoxification indeed can lead to stable DON inactivation and that especially oat is a promising source of new genomic tools to achieve this. The aim is to identify the involved genes and provide sustainable solutions to improve global food security and safety.

Fernando Geu-Flores

Faba bean is a protein crop with high yield potential that thrives in cold, northern climates. It seeds accumulate high levels of protein, antioxidants, and micronutrients making it an ideal crop for inclusion in plant-based food systems in Scandinavia. However, faba bean seeds also accumulate high levels of condensed tannins and phytic acid, which are anti-nutrients that have a negative impact on the uptake of proteins and micronutrients. NutriFaba will characterize the biochemical pathways producing these anti-nutrients throughout seed development. We will then use biotechnological approaches to reduce the anti-nutrient levels in seeds without affecting the antioxidant capacity or the agronomic performance. In summary, NutriFaba will push the boundaries of faba bean anti-nutrient research and help develop highly nutritious varieties that will take part in the sustainable food systems of the future.