Lancaster University

The photosynthesis team at Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) is researching how to improve carbon assimilation to increase crop yields, while minimising the use of resources. Research focuses on understanding natural variation across diverse plant genotypes in photosynthetic efficiency and regulation in response to the environment.

Prof Elizabete Carmo-Silva

The University of Lancaster team are responsible for deep phenotyping of Rubisco activity, amount and regulation in genotypes identified as outliers from the high- and medium-throughput phenotyping. This will include gene expression and protein quantitation of key enzymes involved in Rubisco biogenesis and regulation. They will contribute to identify key genetic regulatory elements that determine the abundance of specific isoforms of Rubisco activase and characterise gene-edited plants.

  Dr Joana Amaral

Joana is working as a Research Associate in the CAPITALISE project in the Photosynthesis team at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University. Joana’s research aims to understand plant response to stress and enhance plant performance under different scenarios. She is currently studying strategies to improve photosynthesis for higher yielding crops based on Rubisco regulation by Rubisco activase.