Western Australia
October 15, 2007
Scientists at
The University of Western
Australia (UWA) are racing against the clock to find plants
that will provide bio-energy and bio-fuels and be able to
perform under the environmental extremes predicted with climate
change.
And an inconspicuous, aesthetically-challenged weed, Arabidopsis
thaliana (or thale or mouse-eared cress) is offering vital
information to researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Plant
Metabolomics, to be opened at 4pm today at UWA, by the Minister
for Energy, Resources, Industry and Innovation, Fran Logan.
The centre is an Australian-first. Metabolomics is the use of
powerful chemical fingerprinting to discover genes that control
metabolism.
Led by the Australian Research Council’s Federation Fellow,
Professor Steven Smith, the team at the centre aims to increase
the food and fuel potential of plants. They chose Arabidopsis as
their model because the small size of its genome makes it useful
for genetic mapping and sequencing, playing the role in plant
science that mice and fruit flies play in human biology.
“We have already increased the size of the plants by 50 per cent
and increased seed yield by a similar amount through
experimentation on the weed’s metabolism. We have also increased
starch content in some plants,” Professor Smith said.
“These results are potentially very important for food, biomass,
bio-diesel and bio-ethanol production from plants. How a plant
deals with its energy resources is similar to financial
management. A family managing a domestic budget will put
something away each week for housekeeping, some to pay the
mortgage and some for savings and investment.
“It is the same with plant growth. Plants use their energy for
different activities, but we want them to spend more on their
long-term reserves to produce more starch and oil, or more
growth.”
UWA, the Western Australian Government’s Centre of Excellence
Program and the Australian Research Council have provided the
funding to establish the $8 million Centre.
Scientists have already been recruited from Australia-wide, the
UK, Japan, Canada, the USA, Thailand and China while
collaborations have begun with other organisations including the
Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority at Kings Park. |
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