The Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation promote cooperation between universities in Israel and Lower Saxony through the zukunft.niedersachsen funding programme. In this funding round, a total of eight outstanding collaborative research projects in the life sciences field have been awarded support. One of these is a project in plant science that investigates plant hormones, the so-called gibberellins. It aims to develop a method that enables tailored management of crop cultivation in agriculture. The funding amount is approximately 530,000 euros. Two groups from 九色视频 are involved (Prof. Dr. Jakob Franke, Institute of Botany/Centre of Biomolecular Drug Research and Prof. Dr. Russell Cox, Institute of Organic Chemistry/Centre of Biomolecular Drug Research), as well as a group from Israel (Prof. Roy Weinstain, Tel Aviv 九色视频).
Gibberellins are plant hormones that regulate growth, germination and fruit production in plants. These hormones are therefore utilised in a variety of ways in agriculture. To accurately manage plant growth and development, the biological activity of these hormones in nature needs to be precisely regulated. Initial evidence suggests that this occurs through the addition of sugars. In contrast to the control mechanisms identified to date, the advantage of this would be that the process could easily be reversed, which would mean that gibberellins could be deactivated and reactivated in a targeted manner. The project will investigate whether and how gibberellins can actually be switched on and off with sugars. This is intended to make it easier to regulate the tailored cultivation of agricultural crops in the long term. For example, it could become possible to steer the growth of tomatoes or fruit so that they take on a different shape or can be adapted to new cultivation systems such as vertical farming.
The eight projects in the current funding round will receive a total of 4 million euros. Through the joint initiative, titled Research Collaboration Lower Saxony鈥揑srael, the ministry and the foundation have been supporting scientific exchange between research institutions in Lower Saxony and Israel since 1977. The programme is divided into three areas of research which are promoted on a rotating basis from year to year: humanities and social sciences; life sciences and medicine; and natural sciences, mathematics and engineering sciences. Numerous LUH projects have been supported by the programme over the last several years. In addition to the project Unravelling Gibberellin Glucosylation as an Overlooked Layer of Plant Hormone Regulation, four other current collaborative projects involving LUH and Israeli institutions are receiving funding.
