Mortimer Niina marni · Hello
Engineering plants and their cell walls for a sustainable future — on Earth and in Space.
A plant synthetic biology group working across two continents, 13,000 km apart.
We work with Arabidopsis, sorghum, wheat, oat, and duckweeds (Lemnaceae).
In Adelaide, AustraliaThe Waite Campus
We are based at the historic Waite Campus, as part of the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine and the Waite Research Institute at Adelaide University (known as Tirkangkaku in Kaurna language). Jenny moved to Adelaide in January 2021, where she is now Professor of plant synthetic biology. We use synthetic biology to develop sustainable novel crops for food and bioproducts, while advancing our understanding of plant glycosylation and metabolism.
Our work includes developing plants to support astronauts on long-duration space missions, as part of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Plants for Space (P4S). This has dual benefits: advancing space exploration, and enabling sustainable closed-environment agriculture (vertical farming) here on Earth. We also train the next generation of plant biotechnology researchers through the ARC Training Hub for Future Crops Development, engineer new crops to produce renewable carbon products through the ARC Research Hub for Engineering Plants to Replace Fossil Carbon, and help provide gene editing and transformation infrastructure through the NCRIS-funded Plant SynBio Australia (Adelaide node).
Our long-standing work on plant cell wall biosynthesis — using it to engineer feedstock crops for the bioeconomy — continues here, with Adelaide University now a Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) partner institution. JBEI-funded researchers work here in Adelaide alongside our U.S.-based colleagues.
In California, USALawrence Berkeley National Lab
Our group is part of the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division (EGSB) in the Biosciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL). We form the Plant Systems Biology Lab in the Feedstocks Division at JBEI, one of four Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers.
Through the mCAFEs SFA — led by Trent Northen and Adam Deutschbauer — we use fabricated ecosystems (EcoPODs and EcoFABs) to understand and engineer the interactions between plants and their microbial communities. Our U.S. work focuses on sorghum, switchgrass and Brachypodium, with some Arabidopsis and poplar.
Jenny is a handling editor at The Plant Journal (the journal of SEB) and a review editor at Plant and Cell Physiology (the journal of JSPP). Support your society journals — and get in touch if you'd like to talk about whether your work might suit either one.
(L–R: Ali, Raven, Charlotte, Jenny, Morgs, Maddy, Art, Ryan, Josh, Chigozie and Wendy.)
(L–R: Hsiao-Han, Anne, Jenny, Yu, Yuan, Shweta.)