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Phyllanthus emlica L. (Euphorbiaceae), a shrub or tree growing in subtropical and tropical areas of the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, and the Malay Peninsula, has been used widely for its anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects in many local traditional medicinal systems, such as Chinese herbal medicine. A team of chemists working in Japan and China isolated a number of discrete substances from the roots of the plant, and determined the molecular structure of these compounds through careful spectroscopic and chemical analysis. The core of a number of these compounds, named phyllaemblic acid, has a structure similar to a number of related compounds with potent biological activity, and contains a five and a six-membered ring system containing oxygen joined together at a single carbon atom (a "spirocycle"). A chemical synthesis of phyllaemblic acid would allow for further investigations into its potential biological activity, but has never been previously reported. This project will address the first total synthesis of the natural product by exploiting an element of symmetry (a mirror plane) within a section of the molecule. This greatly simplifies its total synthesis since the molecule can conveniently be derived from two portions of similar complexity, only one of which is "chiral" (has a non-superimposable mirror image). This strategy will be extended to the first syntheses of the more complex related natural products phyllaemblicins A-C, which contain phyllaemblic acid attached to different sugars through an ester group. Again the biological activity of these natural products has barely been investigated and will be made possible through total synthesis. Stereoselective synthesis remains central to modern organic chemistry, and new methodology must continually be developed in order to prepare more structurally complex materials. Beneficiaries in the UK include the pharmaceutical industry, which requires new means to efficiently prepare chiral molecules. UK academia will also benefit from the high impact the combination of new methodology applied to a major natural product synthesis has within the international organic chemistry community - it is still relatively rare that the first synthesis of a natural product emanates from these shores. The novel diastereotopic group selection strategy central to this project will further encourage other groups to consider such potentially powerful reactions in their own research. A large number of new "natural product like" compounds will be produced in this study that may have beneficial biological activity themselves, which may ultimately increase the quality of life in the UK. Natural product synthesis represents an ideal training for a PhD student in modern organic chemistry, as by its very nature it involves exposure to and mastery of a wide range of transformations and theories. The PhD student on this project will develop the experience and expertise required to enter a career in either the pharmaceutical industry or in academia.

Following the polar amplification of global warming in recent decades, we have witnessed unprecedented changes in the coverage and seasonality of Arctic sea ice, enhanced freshwater storage within the Arctic seas, and greater nutrient demand from pelagic primary producers as the annual duration of open-ocean increases. These processes have the potential to change the phenology, species composition, productivity, and nutritional value of Arctic sea ice algal blooms, with far-reaching implications for trophic functioning and carbon cycling in the marine system. As the environmental conditions of the Arctic continue to change, the habitat for ice algae will become increasingly disrupted. Ice algal blooms, which are predominantly species of diatom, provide a concentrated food source for aquatic grazers while phytoplankton growth in the water column is limited, and can contribute up to half of annual Arctic marine primary production. Conventionally ice algae have been studied as a single community, without discriminating between individual species. However, the composition of species can vary widely between regions, and over the course of the spring, as a function of local environmental forcing. Consequently, current approaches for estimating Arctic-wide marine productivity and predicting the impact of climate warming on ice algal communities are likely inaccurate because they overlook the autecological (species-specific) responses of sea ice algae to changing ice habitat conditions. Diatom-ARCTIC will mark a new chapter in the study of sea ice algae and their production in the Arctic. Our project goes beyond others by integrating the results derived from field observations of community composition, and innovative laboratory experiments targeted at single-species of ice algae, directly into a predictive biogeochemical model. The use of a Remotely-Operated Vehicle during in situ field sampling gives us a unique opportunity to examine the spatio-temporal environmental controls on algal speciation in natural sea ice. Diatom-ARCTIC field observations will steer laboratory experiments to identify photophysiological responses of individual diatom species over a range of key growth conditions: light, salinity and nutrient availability. Additional experiments will characterise algal lipid composition as a function of growth conditions - quantifying food resource quality as a function of species composition. Furthermore, novel analytical tools, such as gas chromatography mass spectrometry and compound specific isotope analysis will be combined to better catalogue the types of lipid present in ice algae. Field and laboratory results will then be incorporated into the state-of-the-art BFM-SI biogeochemical model for ice algae, to enable accurate simulations of gross and net production in sea ice based on directly observed autecological responses. The model will be used to characterise algal productivity in different sea ice growth habitats present in the contemporary Arctic. By applying future climate scenarios to the model, we will also forecast ice algal productivity over the coming decades as sea ice habitats transform in an evolving Arctic. Our project targets a major research gap in Phase I of the CAO programme: the specific contribution of sea ice habitats to ecosystem structure and biogeochemical functioning within the Arctic Ocean. In doing so, Diatom-ARCTIC brings together and links the activities of ARCTIC-Prize and DIAPOD, while further building new collaborations between UK and German partners leading up to the 2019/20 MOSAiC campaign.

Food systems research and policy analysis requires a detailed insight in interlinkages between different stages in the food system (input supply, production, processing, retail, consumption) as well as the coordination of network relationships amongst (public, private and civic) stakeholders. Innovations for healthier and sustainable diets need to be based on detailed insights into the dynamics of food system change and stakeholder responses to different types of (non)price incentives. The Wageningen-led food system flagship leads the conceptual development and operational design of applied research activities within the CRP Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). Key attention is therefore devoted to (a) the identification of critical interactions and incentives that influence food systems dynamics; (b) the mobilization of transdisciplinary knowledge and expertise to enhance food systems change; and (c) the creation of exchange facilities that enable multi-stakeholder cooperation towards food systems integration. The expert will support the above-mentioned activities through (1) identifying entry points for food systems change based on socio-technical interventions [cooperation between A4NH and other CRPs]; (2) systematic comparison of food systems dynamics in different focus countries (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Vietnam and Bangladesh) to identify suitable policy instruments for different settings and stages; and (3) analysis of different price and non-price incentives that could be effective for contributing to shifts towards healthier and more sustainable diets.

In 2050 moet Nederland van het kabinet zijn getransformeerd tot een ‘circulaire economie’. Dat is een economisch en sociaal systeem waarin productie van grondstoffen en diensten duurzaam is georganiseerd, met respect voor mens en milieu. Tot nog toe is het meeste onderzoek hiernaar technologisch en logistiek van aard. Met welke technologieën kunnen reststoffen worden verwerkt, en hoe kunnen de verschillende stof- en energiestromen op elkaar worden aangesloten? MKB-bedrijven die deze technologieën ontwikkelen, realiseren zich dat er nu een volgende stap nodig is: de vertaling van een technologisch systeem naar sociale en economische processen die deelname aan de circulaire economie aantrekkelijk maken voor burgers en bedrijven. Nieuwe technologieën als online marktplaatsen en sociale netwerken (platformisering) en blockchain maken deze stap mogelijk. Ook MKB-bedrijven die betrokken zijn bij gebiedsontwikkeling (‘placemaking’) hebben een toenemende belangstelling voor deze ontwikkelingen. Buurten kunnen namelijk socialer, duurzamer en efficiënter worden ontwikkeld als bewoners en bedrijven meer met elkaar samenwerken, hulpbronnen delen en gezamenlijk duurzame energie produceren. Daardoor dalen de ontwikkelkosten en ontstaat mogelijk een hogere kwaliteit van leven. Dit onderzoek verkent de vraag hoe lokale platformen voor de circulaire economie kunnen worden ontworpen zodat ze aantrekkelijk worden voor deelname van burgers en bedrijven. Het onderzoek richt zich specifiek op het vraagstuk van waardentransparantie. Welke onderliggende economische en sociale waarden moeten een rol krijgen in het ontwerp van lokale platformen voor de circulaire economie? Hoe kunnen deze waarden inzichtelijk gemaakt worden, met als uiteindelijk doel om buurten duurzamer en leefbaarder te maken? Met een research-through-design aanpak verkent dit onderzoek de mogelijkheden voor MKB-bedrijven om aan te haken bij deze ontwikkelingen en bij te dragen aan sociale transformatie op het gebied van duurzaamheid. Dit resulteert in een aantal tools, scenario’s en design-principes die MKB bedrijven toe kunnen passen bij de verdere ontwikkeling van lokale platformen voor de circulaire economie.

Synthetic biology follows engineering principles to build novel devices, pathways and circuits encoded by modular DNA parts, and more recently has turned to the engineering of entire genomes in living cells. The aim of much of the work of synthetic biology is to design and build cells to perform useful new functions they typically don't perform in nature. To further this field, it is important to engineer the workhorse living cell so that they perform their new tasks reliably and reproducibly. To this end there is significant interest in developing simplified cells built with minimal genomes. Through genome engineering and synthesis, it should be possible to create genomes that do not encode the many genes driving processes unnecessary for the cell to perform its main desired function. The work proposed here aims to accelerate the engineering and synthesis of such minimal genomes, by being the first project to build a working chromosome from just the elements deemed essential to support the cell for its function in the lab. Cells growing with this minimal genome should theoretically be more efficient at performing engineered tasks, such as the biosynthesis of a drug molecule at high yields. Our work will therefore be able to produce specialist strains valuable for use in biotechnology. To achieve this, we plan to use knowledge and tools gained from our work as part of the international Sc2.0 project, which is constructing an entirely synthetic genome for baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). We have just completed construction of one chromosome for this project, which now encodes all 334 genes normally found on its natural counterpart. In this project, we aim to replace this entire chromosome with a much smaller minimal version built-up from modules of DNA that each encode one of the genes from this chromosome deemed essential for cell growth in the lab. To do this we will use system called SCRaMbLE that is hard-coded into the DNA of our recently completed synthetic chromosome. Switching this system on leads to genes unnecessary for growth being automatically lost from the growing cells. Doing this at a large scale with our engineered yeast cells and then genome-sequencing whole populations, should provide us with a rich set of data that tells us which genes are required for growth of the yeast in the lab. With this important new dataset in hand, we will then proceed to building our minimal synthetic chromosome and assessing its ability to replace a full chromosome in growing yeast cells. We plan to measure how cells with the minimal chromosome perform in a variety of conditions and determine whether they can grow and express genes with greater efficiency than normal yeast, now that redundant DNA has been removed. This will generate important new insights for understanding how cells consume resources efficiently and have evolved to encode many non-essential genes on their genomes. It will also give us an opportunity to produce new specialist cells for use in biotechnology, and we plan to test our minimal chromosome yeast for their ability to produce a variety of drug molecules that are valuable for industry and particularly for UK industrial collaborators.