Norwich, United Kingdom
June 2, 2025
A new project, co-led by Dr Joshua James and Professor Patrick Cai of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at The University of Manchester, in collaboration with researchers here at the John Innes Centre and at the Earlham Institute, will look at how engineering biology technologies can be developed and used to help feed a growing population while protecting crops against climate change-related catastrophes and pests. The project will focus on potatoes, a staple crop for millions of people.
Funded by a £8.5M grant from the UK Government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the researchers will leverage advances in engineering biology to establish synthetic plant chromosome (synPAC) technologies. These technologies promise to provide powerful new ways of introducing novel traits to plants, such as producing essential nutrients or increased pest resistance, while maintaining the plant’s existing characteristics.
“This project will address these challenges by increasing plant resilience to climate change and pests, therefore reducing the need for harmful agrochemicals such as pesticides, and supporting more sustainable farming which is better for the health of both people and the planet. We hope that our work will support global ambitions of finding a sustainable way to secure our food supply chains.”
Dr Joshua James, Research Fellow, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology
Learning from nature: improving crops for people and the planet
Modern agriculture faces significant challenges, from climate change to soil degradation and food security concerns. However, traditional plant breeding and selection can take decades to introduce beneficial traits, relying on random genetic mixing over multiple generations.
This project will develop synPACs, a novel system for rapidly designing and delivering beneficial traits to plants. Building on natural processes, synPACs enable researchers to rapidly introduce multi-gene traits in a far more precise, controllable, and predictable fashion — offering an innovative alternative to conventional breeding methods.
“We are proud to be directly addressing a huge planetary challenge through our research. Feeding our growing population is becoming increasingly difficult as land is taken away from agriculture, soil quality is degrading, and climate change is affecting crop growth and yield.”
Professor Patrick Cai, Chair in Synthetic Genomics, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology
To achieve this, scientists at The University of Manchester will develop unique new technologies that will allow crop scientists to design and build chromosomes carrying desired traits. synPACs will use Saccharomyces cerevisiae (common baker’s yeast) as a DNA assembly line to efficiently assemble large segments of plant DNA into synthetic chromosomes, prior to direct transfer to crop plants using highly efficient methods developed at the John Innes Centre, and characterised at the Earlham Institute.
“This vital funding means we can begin to programme and engineer plants at scale, creating and testing custom-built plant chromosomes to help crop resilience against disease and climate change, and to make crops more nutritious. At the John Innes Centre we will be testing bespoke techniques and refining each stage of the synthetic chromosome creation process in potatoes, ensuring safety and effectiveness, with a view to trialling different plants too. This innovation has the potential to transform plant science, breeding and agriculture, allowing fast and large-scale improvements at a genetic level, to support farmers and food security in the UK and worldwide.”
Professor Anne Osbourn FRS, Group Leader and Deputy Director of the John Innes Centre
The Earlham Institute will lead on three areas of the project; potato tissue atlas and regulatory element discovery, assembly and testing of a potato regulatory element library through the Earlham Biofoundry, and engineering synPAC components and synPAC maintenance.
“Climate instability, changes in land use, and global conflicts are creating increasing demands on our farmland. This requires us to rethink how we develop new crops to feed our growing populations, replace fossil fuels, and provide new platforms for biomanufacturing. These technologies have the power to remove breeding bottlenecks that have stymied development of new and improved crops. We want to establish a robust, flexible, and reproducible engineering ecosystem to allow the targeted programming of plants at a scale that can transform food security and open up new areas of biomanufacturing.”
Professor Anthony Hall, Head of Plant Genomics and project co-lead, Earlham Institute
The first phase of the project will focus on potatoes, a globally important crop, with the goal of developing technology pipelines to fast-track plant engineering. Initial target traits will include enhancednutritional content and resilience against environmental stressors, as well as improving agricultural sustainability by reducing reliance on chemical inputs while improving crop yields. By enabling plants to efficiently produce valuable compounds, synPACs could also support the development of new, plant-based sources of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds, benefiting both human health and the environment.
Ensuring stability, safety and ethics
The synPAC initiative is committed to working transparently with industry partners, regulators, and the public to ensure responsible development and application of this technology. The research team is focused on delivering benefits for both farmers and consumers, ensuring that crops developed through this platform align with the highest standards of safety, sustainability, and societal acceptance. The synPAC team will work closely with social science teams also funded by ARIA to explore these critical issues.
With a clear roadmap for Phase Two, the synPAC team aims to expand this technology to other staple crops, ultimately ushering in a new age of crops optimised for climate resilience, nutrition, and sustainability.
Topics
Species
