Takehiko Ogura and
Wolfgang Busch
“We are overjoyed with this strong show
of support for the Harnessing Plants
Initiative,” says Professor Joanne Chory,
executive director of the initiative, who is
also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
investigator and globally renowned for her
work in plant science. “Plants have evolved
over time to be an ideal vehicle for carbon
capture and storage. If we can optimize
plants’ natural ability to capture and store
carbon, we can develop plants that not only
have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, but that can also help
enrich soils and increase crop yields.”
In addition to Busch and Chory, the
Harnessing Plants Initiative Leadership Team
also includes Salk faculty Joseph Ecker, Julie
Law and Joseph Noel. By understanding
and improving several genetic pathways in
plants, the Salk team will develop plants that
grow bigger, more robust root systems that
will absorb larger amounts of carbon from the
atmosphere and bury it deep in the soil.
By influencing the genes that control
these traits and then combining these
characteristics in a single plant, the team will
develop Salk Ideal Plants ™ which will be
tested in a state-of-the-art climate simulation
facility at Salk that can mimic environmental
conditions almost anywhere on Earth. This
facility will allow the scientists to uncover
the genetic traits that help plants survive in
stressful environments - in the past, present
and future. The team will use that information
to develop carbon-capturing crops that can
survive in more extreme conditions. The team
will later expand their laboratory tests to field
trials locally and globally.
www.salk.edu/harnessingplants
Normal Arabidopsis plant
with shallow roots
Arabidopsis thaliana mutant
showing deeper root system
OCTOBER 2019 | GBSAN.COM 77