Meet the Beacon: Dr Gabriel Castrillo

Gabriel Castrillo is a Nottingham Research Fellow in Plant Microbiome, and a member of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence. Gabriel’s research is focused on understanding how plants and microbes interact, in the context of nutrition. He examines how microbes help plants cope with nutritional deficiencies, and how the plant impacts the structure of the …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Michael Pound

Michael Pound is a Nottingham Research Fellow in Computer Vision and member of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence. Mike is a computer scientist whose research focuses on the development of novel computer vision techniques. Within the Beacon, he is working with bioscientists to apply these computer vision techniques to plant phenotyping, providing accurate measurement of …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Guillermina Mendiondo

Guillermina Mendiondo is a Nottingham Research Fellow in Crop Molecular Genetics, and a member of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence. Guillermina’s research focuses on the impact of environmental stress on plant development, and the role of the N-end rule pathway in targeted proteolysis as a central hub integrating plant responses to abiotic stresses. She …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Sina Fischer

Sina Fischer is a Nottingham Research Fellow in Functional Genomics, and a member of the Future Food Beacon. Sina researches Whole Genome Duplication in Arabidopsis thaliana. Her research seeks to understand the genetics behind traits that appear when the whole genome is duplicated. Sina intends to expand her research into rice and barley while an NRF. …

How to feed the mission to Mars, a talk by Dr Michele Perchonok

In December, the University of Nottingham Division of Food Science, and the Future Food Beacon were pleased to host Dr Michele Perchonok, current president of IFT, to a lecture on the question of feeding the mission to Mars. In this blog post, third year PhD candidate, James Huscroft, reflects on her talk and the logistics …

Future Food Beacon Collaborators: Dr Silvia Busoms

Dr Silvia Busoms is a plant scientist and Future Food Beacon collaborator. She earned her PhD from the University of Aberdeen and the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona in 2015. From 2016-2018, she was a postdoctoral researcher in Levi Yant’s lab at JIC.  In this interview, Silvia talks to Lexi Earl about her journey to become …

PhenomUK

You have probably heard of plant genomes right? Scientists sequenced the wheat genome back in August of last year. The genome is the genetic structure of a plant and understanding the make-up of the genome gives scientists a map to understanding how the plant is formed and maintained. But have you heard of the phenome? …

Innovation Challenge: Reflections and Project Announcements

The focus of the Future Food Beacon is to find solutions to the twinned challenges of enough nutritious food for the planet under changing and increasingly testing conditions; and providing foods that reduce diseases of affluence, like diabetes and obesity. Our focus runs along two themes: agricultural resilience, and food for health and healthy ageing. We …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Sally Eldeghaidy

Sally Eldeghaidy is an Anne Mclaren Research Fellow in Sensory Science, and a member of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence. Sally uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to understand neural mechanisms involved in food intake, food choice and consumption. She focuses on understanding the sensory-brain-gut interactions in the regulation of food intake to tackle …