Hussam receives Ascending investigator grant
DynaMo partner Hussam Nour-Eldin has received the prestigious Ascending Investigator grant of 10 million DKK from the Novo Nordic Foundation for his project TRANSFORM - unleashing the transformative potential of transport engineering in crop improvement. The grant is one of the NNF Industrial Biotechnology and Environmental Biotechnology project grants from 2023.
Project description
Plant production is currently facing unprecedented challenges. Yield increases achieved by the green revolution are leveling off, and climate change and a need to preserve natural habitats are limiting plant production areas. We must now - more than ever - rely on innovative solutions to develop crops with increased TRANSFORM - Unleashing the transformative potential of transport engineering in crop improvement yield, nutritional quality and tolerance to stresses like heat or drought.
TRANSFORM provides such an innovative solution by targeting the transport proteins embedded within the membranes of plant cells. These proteins not only transport mineral nutrients and control drought tolerance, but are also essential for moving sucrose, the energy currency of plants, to where it is needed in the plant.
Through experimentally challenging endeavors, TRANSFORM will advance the knowledge about transporter functions in plants - and how to engineer them - to a hitherto unimaginable level and thus lay the foundation for devising new and ground-breaking crop improvement strategies.
The project period runs from 1 Sept. 2023 until 31 August 2028.