NIAB Wheat Transformation Resource and BotanyLive
On May 18th (global Fascination of Plants Day btw) I had the pleasure of attending the wrap-up meeting for the first phase of the NIAB Community Resource for Wheat Transformation Facility (CRWT) at the NIAB Innovation farm site just outside Cambridge.
The CRWT is a BBSRC resource that has provided the opportunity for plant scientists without expertise in wheat transformation (aka most people) to apply to have their gene of interest introduced into hexaploid wheat. Over the course of the grant almost 120 applications have been made to this resource and 50 genes have been pushed through the CRWT pipeline. This generates plantlets that are then sent back to the applicants for further analysis. There will be a full report from this meeting in the upcoming GARNish newsletter but suffice to say it was exciting to learn about successful applications of this technology, in particular those that have directly led into future BBSRC grants from the labs of Julie Gray (Sheffield) and Matthew Paul (Rothamsted).
As part of the #BotanyLive celebration we also put together a short video to advertise NIAB and the CRWT resource. This features Alison Bentley (NIAB), Sinead Drea (University of Leicester), Ben Sibbett (University of Southampton) and Keith Edwards (University of Bristol). You can see the full video through the Periscope website:
https://www.pscp.tv/GARNetweets/1nAKEBqpYolGL?t=3s (will open in the Periscope URL)
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