Agriculture

Donald Cooper of Mobile Assay Inc. in the U.S. will develop a low-cost, highly sensitive smartphone-based platform that employs phone cameras to image and amplify signals from immunoassay rapid test strips to detect Botrytis and aflatoxin infection in seeds or soil. Connecting phone data to a cloud server would allow farmers to monitor seed and crop quality and enable the development of regional preventative strategies.

Luis Herrera of StelaGenomics, Inc. in the U.S. proposes to produce transgenic crop plants that express an enzyme allowing them to take up a unique source of phosphorous as fertilizer, and to greatly compromise weed growth. This new fertilizer and weed control system could help achieve sustainable high-yield agriculture in Sub-Saharan African without expensive herbicides.

Amitava Mitra of the University of Nebraska in the U.S. will investigate direct repeat- induced gene silencing, a phenomenon of RNA interference in which genes adjacent to a target gene are also silenced. This "transitive silencing" will be tested for its ability to target multiple crop viruses at once, allowing the development of a transgenic wheat strain that is resistant to multiple major diseases.

Wassim Chehab and Janet Braam of Rice University in the U.S. will use light entrainment of plant circadian rhythms and mechanical perturbation to enhance crop biotic stress resistance in the field and post-harvest. The crop protection solutions are simple to administer and, if successful, may enhance smallholder farmer food security.

Jan Kreuze of the International Potato Center in Peru will use RNA silencing mechanisms to eliminate viruses from cultured plants in-vitro by introducing doubled- stranded RNA into the culture media.

Carl Spetz of Bioforsk in Norway will eliminate sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) from infected sweet potato plants by co-infecting the plants with cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) engineered with RNAi against SPFMV. Because CMV can only survive on sweet potato in the presence of SPFMV, it is itself eliminated as it eliminates SPFMV.

Amos Alakonya of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya will create transgenic maize with RNA interfering constructs targeting key aflatoxin and sterigmatocystin biosynthesis enzymes. The goal is to prevent synthesis of these toxins by Aspergillus fungi.

Meshack Obonyo of Egerton University Njoro in Kenya and Aman Bonaventure of Masinde Muliro University in Kenya will develop a simple, cost-effective, solar- powered grain drying unit for prevention of aflatoxin contamination in stored grain. The prototype will use locally available materials and be tested in the laboratory and the field.

Ewa Kowalska of Ulm University in Germany will develop photoactive materials with antiseptic and antifungal properties for food storage safety. Titanium oxide (titania) will be evaluated for its antiseptic properties, the ultimate goal being a paint that could be applied to food storage containers.

Ralf Koebnik of the Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement in France will generate rice plants resistant to Xanthomonas by making them unresponsive to bacterial infection by selectively generating new rice resistance genes using TALEN technology. To infect, Xanthomonas activates susceptibility genes in rice using transcription factors (TAL effectors).