Past Projects
Nuffield Projects 2011
- What determines when plants flower?
- Understanding how late blight suppresses plant immune systems
- Carbohydrates in a click
- Improving genetic modification in barley
- Investigating the variation in allelopathy between different barley cultivars
- New leads in the search for anti-tuberculosis drugs
- How plants survive the night
- Natural variation in seed and organ size in Arabidopsis thaliana
- Effective remedies for slug control: a slimy problem
Nuffield Projects 2010
- Detecting plant signals needed for symbiotic interactions with nitrogen-fixing bacteria
- The effects of altered starch synthesis on dormancy in developing barley grains
- Plant adaptation to heat stress
- Characterising the interaction of bacteria with plant roots
- Probing plant starch metabolism using a bacterial sugar-metabolising enzyme
- Why are some immature seeds ‘blonde’?
- Analysis of the formation of empty virus-like particles in plants
- Natural variation in a small wild grass Brachypodium distachyon
- Preferences of aphid parasitic wasps
- Collating information from protein mass spectrometry
Nuffield Projects 2009
- Investigation of adaptation to a new host plant within a population of the Peach Potato aphid
- Understanding how a fungal toxin kills plants
- Anti-adhesive carbohydrates as inhibitors of bacterial adhesion
- How conserved is EDE1 function - can a moss gene repair an Arabidopsis mutant?
- Factors controlling grain shape and size in wheat and their effects on milling yield
- Do plants count?
- Microscopy of the interaction between wheat and the take-all fungus
- Do polyphenols in tomato provide resistance to Western Flower Thrips?
- Can a chemically-modified plant virus be used to carry chemicals into plant cells?
Nuffield Projects 2008
- Staying green – mapping Mendel’s I locus
- Finding nuclei stains and the metaphase stage in powdery mildew
- Cryptic Iantibiotic gene clusters in Streptomyces venezualae
- Bionanoscience at the virus-chemistry interface
- Pre-harvesting sprouting in barley
- Mapping fruitful in barley
- Understanding plant architecture in wheat
- Chemical synthesis of components of pectin
- Factors controlling grain shape and size
2007
How do bacteria attach to plant roots?
The YacG-GyrB47
complex.
Nitrogen use efficiency in wheat.
Chemical synthesis of
pectin.
Studying the evolution of petal cell morphology: a survey of
buzz-pollinated spescies.
Nitric oxide sensing by the soil bacterium
Azotobacter vinelandii.
Evolution of flower asymmetry in
Antirrhinum.
Investigating cotyledon colours in maturing
peas.
Bionanoscience: exploring the virus-chemistry interface.
Genotyping Arabidopsis plants .
2006
How does the rice blast fungus infect rice plants?
Understanding a
gene (psd2) involved in drought responses in peas
Eukaryotic
initiation factor 4A.1 & 4A.2 in Arabidopsis thaliana
Effect of
carbamate herbicides on the internal organisation of plant cells
Genetic
control of flower colour in peas
Allometric modelling of organ size and
shape in Antirrhinum
Do bees prefer red, white or patterned
flowers?
Starch degradation in plants at night
Homologous relationship of
rice and wheat
How do plants tolerate bacterial infections?
Plants as
factories for valuable proteins
2005
Benefits of gene mutations in wild-type peas
Molecular genetics of
barley varieties
Role of bundle sheath cells in starch metabolism of maize
leaves
The same but different: principle component analysis of Antirrhinum
petal shape
The use of Cowpea mosaic virus for the expression of foreign
proteins
Analysing the twisted growth of roots in plants overexpressing a
microtubule-associated protein
Visualisation of microtubule stability using
fluorescence microscopy
Detecting mutagenesis at the DNA level in
wheat
Identifying genes regulating leaf development
Screening for growth
mutants in Arabidopsis
2004
Kinetic characterisation of mutants of oxalate decarboxylase from
Bacillus subtilis.
Investigation of pollinator behaviour and
reproductive success in an experimental array of snapdragons.
The analysis
of GM barley genomic DNA sequences flanking transgenes.
Screening a library
of shuffled lipoxygenases for novel activities and products.
Expression,
purification and characterization of recombinant cytochrome P450 enzymes.
Do
bees prefer red, white or patterned flowers?
Structural studies of
antibiotic biosynthesis.
Chemical warfare between plants.
Starch
degradation in leaves of Arabidopsis.
Control of endoreduplication in
Arabidopsis.
2003
Isolation of anti-fungal defence chemicals from
oat roots
Production of environmentally friendly plant protectants from
hydro-peroxides
DNA fingerprinting analysis of special genetic stocks of
hexaploid wheat
Genetic mapping in barley using single nucleotide
polymorphisms
Infection of barley varieties by the mildew fungus: cytology
and population genetics
Isolation of genes involved in plant cell
differentiation
The genetic basis of tendril formation in peas
DNA
fingerprinting in wheat
Why do plants have several copies of the same gene,
e.g. UDP-glucose-4-epimerase?
Genes involved in cell division in the
filamentous fungus, Aspergillus nidulans
Functional architecture in
plant cell walls
2002
Green fluorescent protein and live cell imaging in
plants
Screening for Rhizobiummutants using DNA amplification
techniques
Studying the expression of gemini virus genes in
plants
Genetic mapping of polygenes in wheat
Functional genomic analysis
of serrate in Arabidopsis
The role of iron-sulphur clusters in the
enzyme hydrogenase
Developmental control of starch synthesis in cells and
tissues of wheat
Plant mutations affecting the Rhizobium-legume
symbiosis
Genetic and biochemical studies on oxalate oxidase
Studies of
cell-specific transgene expression in photosynthesis
2001
Purification of
cytochrome proteins from Azotobacter
Genes involved in xylem
formation
Susceptibility to plant viruses
Mutants in root
development
Cloning andDNA sequencing in the wheat genome
Disease
resistance pathways in Tomato
Barley mutants with modified starch
synthesis
Powdery mildew resistance in barley
Seed proteins in
legumes
Cell cycle genes in Aspergillus(bread mould)
2000
Engineering virus
resistance in rice
Mapping a developmental mutation in Arabidopsis
Streptomyces genetics
Streptomyces genome analysis
Arabidopsis mutants in gibberellin
signalling
Screening for disease resistance genes
Trapping a pathogen
induced gene
Sugar metabolism in seeds of oilseed rape
Enzyme
purification from pea roots
Sugar composition of pea embryos
1999
Leaf and flower
development in pea
Genetic mapping of oligosaccharides
DNA sequencing in
millet
Fungal diseases of wheat
Seed dormancy in wheat
Cell cycle
control in yeast
Transposon mutagenesis in Mycobacterium
Control of
flowering by day-length
Vaccines from plants
1998
Molecular
modelling
Wheat Yellow rusts
Rhizobium genetics
Cassava Mosaic
Virus
Cell cycle in yeast
Plant viruses
Powdery Mildew
Protein
purification
Clinical audits
Pea molecular genetics
Rapeseed
oils
1997
Rhizobium
genetics
Crystals
Starch biosynthesis
Mapping drought
resistance
Plant cytoskeleton/antibodies
Genes controlling
flowering