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Sainsbury Laboratory

Read more at: New research team joins SLCU
New research team joins SLCU

New research team joins SLCU

Dr Sarah Robinson has joined the SLCU research leadership team and will head a new research group focused on investigating the mechanical properties of plants associated with growth.


Read more at: SLCU researchers discover gene that could help us grow crops faster

SLCU researchers discover gene that could help us grow crops faster

Plant scientists at SLCU and the University of Bordeaux have discovered a gene that they hope can be used to widen a nutrient trafficking bottleneck and potentially increase crop yields.


Read more at: Enemy at the gates

Enemy at the gates

The Schornack team has discovered that increasing the activity of a single gene can increase a plant’s resistance to blight at its first line of defence — the epidermis.


Read more at: SLCU welcomes new Research Group Leader

SLCU welcomes new Research Group Leader

SLCU is delighted to welcome Dr François Nédélec to the join its research leadership team.


Read more at: New insights into how bud-bud communication influences branching
New insights into how bud-bud communication influences branching

New insights into how bud-bud communication influences branching

New insights into how buds communicate with each other through the dynamic auxin transport network have been published by SLCU plant scientists.


Read more at: Plant Science Educator selected for Antarctic expedition

Plant Science Educator selected for Antarctic expedition

Alex Jenkin, project manager at the Gatsby Plant Science Education Programme (GPSEP), a team administered by the Sainsbury Laboratory, has been selected to join an international group of 95 women in science on a three-week expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula.


Read more at: Noisy gene atlas to help reveal how plants ‘hedge their bets’ in race for survival

Noisy gene atlas to help reveal how plants ‘hedge their bets’ in race for survival

As parents of identical twins will tell you, they are never actually identical, even though they have the same genes. This is also true in the plant world. Now, new research by Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) is helping to explain why ‘twin’ plants, with identical genes, grown in identical environments continue to display unique characteristics all of their own.


Read more at: How trees and turnips grow fatter – researchers unlock the secrets of radial growth

How trees and turnips grow fatter – researchers unlock the secrets of radial growth

Plant science researchers from SLCU and the University of Helsinki have identified key regulatory networks controlling how plants grow ‘outwards’, which could help us to grow trees to be more efficient carbon sinks and increase vegetable crop yields.


Read more at: SLCU helps reveal another layer in the strigolactone signalling pathway

SLCU helps reveal another layer in the strigolactone signalling pathway

An interdisciplinary collaboration between structural biologists and plant scientists has revealed another layer in the signalling pathway of strigolactone – a plant hormone that plays a key role in shoot branching and other plant development processes.


Read more at: Circadian clock imparts continuous control over the timing of cell division

Circadian clock imparts continuous control over the timing of cell division

SLCU researchers have demonstrated that the circadian clock is more complex than a simple ‘on-off switch’ when it comes to controlling cell division.