A few funding opportunities for UK plant scientists

Here are the details of a few funding opportunities we have recently came across for early career and more established researchers – some of the deadlines are quite soon so if you’re interested, be quick!

Royal Society Research Grants

The Royal Society invites applications for its research grants. These provide seed-corn funding for early-career UK scientists for research within the society’s remit in the natural sciences, including the history of science. The aim is to increase the availability of specialised equipment and consumables for high quality research, and to enable scientists to further develop their new projects by obtaining funding from other sources.

Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent status, be working as independent researchers within five years of their first academic position and be resident in the UK. Non-tenured researchers and retired scientists may apply if the application is related to the history of science and the applicant works in association with an eligible institution. Eligible organisations are UK universities and non-profit research organisations, including institutes funded by the UK Research Councils.

Two types of grants are available for a maximum period of 12 months: grants of up to £15,000 for specialised equipment, essential consumable materials and services, and travel and subsistence for essential field research; and grants of up to £5,000 for the publication of scholarly works on the history of science.

Deadline: 26th May 2015

 

BBSRC Future Leader Fellowship

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Food Standards Agency invite applications for their future leader fellowship. This enables early-career researchers to undertake independent research on any area within biotechnology and biological sciences, and to gain leadership skills.

Applications that align with the following strategic priorities are particularly welcome:

  • animal health;
  • bioenergy – generating new replacement fuels for a greener, sustainable future;
  • combating antimicrobial resistance;
  • data driven biology;
  • food, nutrition and health;
  • healthy ageing across the lifecourse;
  • new strategic approaches to industrial biotechnology;
  • reducing waste in the food chain;
  • replacement, refinement and reduction in research using animals;
  • sustainably enhancing agricultural production;
  • synthetic biology;
  • systems approaches to the biosciences;
  • technology development for the biosciences;
  • welfare of managed animals.

In addition, the FSA will co-fund proposals that have the potential to impact on issues highlighted in its emerging strategy 2015–2020 and underpinning science, evidence and information strategy. A particular interest is for proposals that aim to realise the potential of utilising big data approaches to address complex issues that will ultimately lead to benefits for consumers. Fellows whose proposals are co-funded by the FSA may undertake a short term placement with the agency.

Applicants should have a PhD, or be expecting to have passed their viva prior to 30 November 2015. They should have no more than five years’ postdoctoral research employment by this point.

Approximately 12 fellowships are available. Each fellowship is worth up to £250,000 over a period of three years. Awards include personal salary as well as support for travel and subsistence, training activities and research consumables.

Deadline: 4th June 2015

 

Rank Prize Nutrition Fund New Lecturer Award

The Rank Prize Funds’ nutrition committee invites applications for its new lecturer awards. These support scientists who are conducting research in an area of human nutrition or crop science in order to further their careers.

Newly-appointed lecturers, researchers of equivalent status who are based in research institutes, or fellows with their own independent support who are working in a UK institution, may apply. The post must have been started at the earliest in 2013, and applicants should normally be three to nine years from their PhD. Postdoctoral scientists supported on a senior investigator’s funding are not eligible.

Awards are worth up to £20,000 each for a period of up to two years. Funding may be used for consumables, equipment or a contribution towards a salary or student support.

Deadline: 28 August 2015

Arabidopsis Research Round-up

Just one new paper to share with you this week!

 

  • Binkert M, Kozma-Bognar L, Terecskei K, de Veylder L, Nagy F and Ulm R. UV-B-responsive association of the Arabidopsis bZIP transcription factor ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 with target genes, including its own promoter. The Plant Cell, 28 October 2014. DOI: 10.1105/tpc.114.130716. [Open Access]

Though he has a joint appointment at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ferenc Nagy is also SULSA Chair of Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh. Working with Swiss, Hungarian and Belgian colleagues, this paper describes research to understand the transcription factors regulating plants’ protective responses to UV-B. It is shown that, in Arabidopsis, binding of the bZIP transcription factor ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 (HY5) to the promoters of UV-B-responsive genes is enhanced by UV-B independently of the UV-B photoreceptor UV RESISTANCE LOCUS8 (UVR8).

GARNet 2014 presentations available online

As you’ll already know, we held our GARNet 2014 conference, Arabidopsis: The Ongoing Green Revolution, at the University of Bristol on the 9th and 10th September. If you didn’t know, you can read Charis’ report on it by clicking here to go to the main GARNet website, or here to see some photos!

Some of the researchers who spoke at our conference have kindly agreed to share their GARNet 2014 presentations with you online – please click the links in the programme below to view or download a PDF copy of the speaker’s slides.

 

Programme

Session 1: Physiology & Productivity

Session 2: Genome Biology

Session 3: Natural Variation

Session 4: Systems and Synthetic Biology

Arabidopsis Research Round-up

Apologies there hasn’t been an Arabidopsis Research Round-up for a few weeks, I’ve been on annual leave getting married! Here’s a catch up of the newest Arabidopsis research papers from the UK community over the last month, including one from a GARNet committee member, and one from a former GARNet PI.

 

  • Schatlowski N, Wolff P, Santos-González J, Schoft V, Siretskiy A, Scott R, Tamaru H and Köhler C. Hypomethylated pollen bypasses the interploidy hybridization barrier in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell, 1 September 2014. DOI: 10.1105/tpc.114.130120.

Rod Scott from the University of Bath was involved on this Plant Cell paper. With Swedish, Austrian and Swiss colleagues, it was identified that, through the suppression of expressed imprinted genes, hypomethylation can occur in pollen that alters the epigenetic control of the ‘interploidy hybridization barrier’. Based on these findings, the researchers here present a novel method for the generation of viable triploid Arabidopsis plants, which could have significant impact for plant breeding.

 

  • Chew YH, Wenden B, Flis A, et alMultiscale digital Arabidopsis predicts individual organ and whole-organism growth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2 September 2014. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1410238111. [Open Access]

You can tell former GARNet PI Andrew Millar from the University of Edinburgh led this paper – it’s all about linking the Arabidopsis research community! Quantitative modeling is undeniably an important tool in modern predictive biology, but understanding plants at a molecular level doesn’t necessarily help us to ‘bridge the genotype to phenotype gap’ and predict how molecular changes affect the whole organism, or vice versa. Linking together several models across multiple scales, Millar and colleagues here present a validated multiscale model of Arabidopsis rosette growth, enabling prediction of how genetic regulation and biochemical dynamics may affect organ and whole-plant growth.

 

  • Chao D-Y, Baraniecka P, Danku J, Koprivova A, Lahner B, Luo H, Yakubova E, Dilkes BP, Kopriva S and Salt DE. Variation in sulfur and selenium accumulation is controlled by naturally occurring isoforms of the key sulfur assimilation enzyme APR2 across the Arabidopsis thaliana species range. Plant Physiology, 18 September 2014. DOI: 10.1104/pp.114.247825. [Open Access]

GARNet committee member and ‘Mr Ionomics’ David Salt, from the University of Aberdeen, was the lead on this new paper in Plant Physiology, working with colleagues from the John Innes Centre, Purdue, Cologne and Shanghai. This study used linkage mapping in synthetic F2 populations to investigate the natural variation in total leaf sulphur and selenium levels across a wide range of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions. Though the significance is not yet understood, it was found that the catalytic capacity of APR2, an enzyme important in allowing the accumulation of sulphur and selenium in leaves, varied by four orders of magnitude.

 

  • Fujikura U, Elsaesser L, Breuninger H, Sanchez-Rodriguez C, Ivakov A, Laux T, Findlay K, Persson S and Lenhard M. Atkinesin-13A modulates cell wall synthesis and cell expansion in Arabidopsis thaliana via the THESEUS1 pathway. PLOS Genetics, 18 September 2014. DOI: 10.1104/pp.114.247825. [Open Access]

For plants to grow they need to not only proliferate their cells, but expand the size of the cells too. Since plant cells are encased in a rigid cell wall, the cell wall structure must be temporarily loosened to allow expansion and the deposition of additional cell wall materials. Working with a German-led team and colleagues in Australia, Kim Findlay from the John Innes Centre contributed to this paper, which discusses the roles of AtKINESIN-13-A and its homologue AtKINESIN-13B in limiting cell expansion and size in Arabidopsis thaliana.

 

  • Johansson H, Jones HJ, Foreman J, Hemsted JR, Stewart K, Grima R and Halliday KJ. Arabidopsis cell expansion is controlled by a photothermal switch.Nature Communications, 26 September 2014. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5848. [Open Access]

A second appearance in today’s Round-up for the University of Edinburgh’s Karen Halliday, and another paper discussing cell expansion. This time, this Nature Communications paper explores the finding that phytochrome B-controlled growth in the Arabidopsis hypocotyl is strictly regulated by temperature: a shift in temperature induces a dramatic reversal of response from inhibition to promotion of hypocotyl elongation by light.

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