Two ERC Consolidator Grants for the University of Bonn Plant breeding project by Prof. Dr Annaliese Mason receives millions in EU funding.
Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) go to outstanding researchers and provide funding worth millions. At the University of Bonn, two people are receiving coveted ERC Consolidator Grants: Prof. Dr. Annaliese Mason from the Institute of Crop Sciences and Resource Conservation (INRES) and Prof. Dr. Dennis Lehmkuhl from the Institute of Philosophy.
Prof. Dr. Annaliese Mason - from the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn. (© Photo: Volker Lannert)
Many of our crops, such as bananas and potatoes, are polyploid: they have extra copies of each chromosome. Polyploidy can lead to higher vigor, better growth and better tolerance to drought. That's why agents that lead to a doubling of the chromosome set are used in plant breeding. "However, the resulting plants are unstable," says Prof. Annaliese Mason, who is responsible for plant breeding at the Institute of Crop Sciences and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn. "They lose genetic information important for viability and fertility during meiosis – sexual cell division – which makes them unsuitable as breeding material."
The scientist is now funded with a coveted Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) worth nearly two million euros over the next five years. In the project "Stabilising autopolyploid meiosis for enhanced yield," Prof. Mason is investigating how new polyploid crop plants can be stabilized, using both naturally occurring genetic variants and genetic modification. She hopes to double the chromosome number of crops such as Chinese cabbage, turnip and oilseeds, then to use this approach to produce stable plants for breeding. "If we can overcome this major problem of polyploid instability, we may theoretically be able to further increase the vigor and thus the yields of crops," says Annaliese Mason, who is also a member of the cluster of excellence PhenoRob at the University of Bonn. With the help of the ERC grant, the scientist plans to build a team to advance this important research.
Annaliese Mason studied genetics at the University of Western Australia in Perth (Australia) and received her PhD there. She subsequently conducted research in Wuhan (China) and in Brisbane (Australia). At the University of Gießen (Germany) she led an Emmy Noether research group and completed her habilitation on plant hybrids. For her habilitation thesis, she received the Justus von Liebig University Award. She has been teaching and researching at the University of Bonn since September 2020 as head of the plant breeding department.
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Information on the "Centre of Gravity" project by Prof. Dr. Dennis Lehmkuhl from the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Bonn can be found in the University of Bonn press release linked below.
... to press release of the University of Bonn:
