Giles E.D. Oldroyd

Essentially, the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis is really just a modified form of the mycorrhizal fungal symbiosis,

with a few tweaks.

And one of the really important tweaks is to link that symbiosis signaling pathway to root organogenesis to make the nodules that are able to accommodate those nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

But even there, these apparently unique nodule structures are not that novel.

They use preexisting developmental genes that are already present in our cereal crops.

So essentially, nitrogen fixation uses a whole set of preexisting genetic components, but they re-network them in a novel way to create the apparent novelty of nitrogen fixation.

Now, from an engineering perspective, it's much easier to re-network a set of preexisting genetic components than it is to build those genetic components from scratch.

Now, this work is not yet published, but using this knowledge and getting the networking of those preexisting genetic components right

we have now been able to engineer nodules in non-legumes.

Now, unfortunately, at the moment, those nodules don't get infected with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

That's the step that we're currently working on.

However,

I believe we are well on track to delivering nitrogen-fixing cereals.

And because we're re-networking pre-existing genetic components, as opposed to having to build those genetic components from scratch, I'm pretty confident that we can deliver those nitrogen-fixing cereals within my career.

Nature has already shown us how to sustainably feed this planet.

I believe the next green revolution is going to be the microbial revolution, using beneficial fungi to deliver phosphates and beneficial bacteria to deliver nitrogen, providing a much more sustainable means to support our food production systems and providing technology that's accessible to all of the world's farmers.

Thank you.

There is an argument that knowledge is power, and many families would like to know everything, whether it's treatable or not.