From food security and rising anti-microbial resistance to environmental sustainability and the difficulties of growing crops under changing climatic conditions, humanity faces huge challenges over the coming decades.
From food security and rising anti-microbial resistance to environmental sustainability and the difficulties of growing crops under changing climatic conditions, humanity faces huge challenges over the coming decades.
The Earlham Institute is working with national and international partners to develop innovative ways to find potential solutions - many of which were under discussion at this year’s EI Innovate event.
EI Innovate is an annual showcase of the Institute's research, highlighting opportunities for innovation and collaboration. It offers delegates a chance to learn about the expertise of EI researchers, hear about the impact of our research, and discover state-of-the-art facilities and training programmes.
Three threads ran throughout the day-long event - food sustainability and security; human health; and opportunities to benefit from the Earlham Institute’s cutting-edge tools and techniques.
Dr Liliya Serazetdinova, Head of Business Development and Impact, chaired proceedings and welcomed in-person attendees again after two virtual incarnations of this popular meeting.
“EI Innovate events have gone on to foster exciting and valuable conversations between academia and industry. For example, one of the discussions at EI Innovate two years ago resulted in the Hybrid Wheat Initiative, which connects 25 breeding companies and research institutes worldwide, to resolve the critical challenge of hybrid wheat,” she said.
“We hope this year’s discussions will help us identify another initiative where our expertise could help to deliver a tangible impact for food security or human health.”
The Atrium at Earlham Institute was abuzz with conversation this year
Professor Anthony Hall’s group has been collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) to resequence wheat genomes and find variants to improve the heat tolerance of this staple crop in a warming world.
“Three marker trait associations have been found which increase heat tolerance,” he said, “significantly improving yield under high temperatures. CIMMYT is now using this in breeding programmes - the potential impact is huge.”
Elsewhere, Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Tarang Mehta has been working on tilapia, an important fish for aquaculture. The fish’s large size and ease of feeding, as well as its ability to tolerate brackish water and a wide temperature range, have led to its status as the second most farmed fish in the world.
Analysing the tilapia genome will allow breeding of cold-resilient fish, vital as the world experiences more extreme cold events, and could also improve growth and immunity.
Dr Will Nash, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Haerty group, described the potential for using genomic analyses to decode the impacts of environmental change on populations of native red-tailed bumblebees.
The group's work to assemble a high-quality reference genome for this species allows collaborators at the Natural History Museum to map data generated from bees up to 130 years old, collected from five museums across the country. The collaboration hopes to track the timeline of change, showing the impact of intensification of the agri-food system in the UK.
And group leader Dr Jose De Vega discussed further crop adaptations which could be made to improve resilience, including exploring the diversity of local varieties. There are 511 varieties of rice held in a Vietnamese gene bank, offering unparalleled opportunities to improve farmed crops through re-introduction of biodiversity.
EI Innovate events have gone on to foster exciting and valuable conversations between academia and industry. We hope this year’s discussions will help us identify another initiative where our expertise could help to deliver a tangible impact for food security or human health.
Dr Liliya Serazetdinova, Head of Business Development and Impact, Earlham Institute
Earlham Institute Director, Professor Neil Hall, discussed genomic approaches to tackling anti-microbial resistance (AMR). AMR is responsible for more than 700,000 deaths a year globally. This figure is expected to rise dramatically over the coming decades if urgent action isn’t taken.
The Institute has joined partners across the world to sequence current and historical samples of Salmonella. The Salmonella 10k Genomes project spanned five continents and 53 countries, sequencing samples collected from humans and livestock over decades.
Professor Hall said: “We were able to sequence the genomes of diverse sample Salmonella isolates. We can then identify how antibiotic pressure impacts how the genomes change over time.”He presented results clearly showing the microbes responding to antimicrobial pressure, with lineages exposed to antibiotics showing significantly more mutation.
Group leader Dr Wilfried Haerty spoke on new insights into identifying potential drug targets for schizophrenic and bipolar patients.
In 2019, one in eight people worldwide suffered from a mental health condition, while mental health issues are estimated to cost the UK economy £117 billion annually. Characterisation of genes related to mental illness has significant implications for treatment.
Many genes produce more than one transcript variant. Just one gene was found to produce up to 241 varying proteins, depending on its location and environment. The total number of potential products from all genes has been estimated at 87,814, but this is likely to be significantly underestimated.
This means one gene can express differently - and have different effects - in different areas of the body and brain. Researchers identifying drug targets could improve treatment by taking the location of the transcript into account.
And Dr Iain Macaulay, standing in for Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow Edyta Wojtowicz, discussed the impact of dietary intervention on immune system function and gene expression.
Dr Macaulay described how a low protein diet has shown to delay age-related inflammation in mice and may also enhance the immune response.
Prof Neil Hall, Director of EI, talking to delegates at EI innovate
The Earlham Institute can fill a gap for researchers by providing collaborative environments. Our system has been built with scientists in mind.
Dr Rob Davey, Head of e-Infrastructure
Part of the Institute’s mission is to work collaboratively with academics and industry. Advanced sequencing and automation enables us to scale up and miniaturise many molecular biological and genomics projects, making them more affordable and accessible to a wider range of laboratories.
Dr Rob Davey, Head of e-Infrastructure, spoke on the Institute’s computational infrastructure services, tools, and resources. He described the pressure on researchers to use more and better data science techniques, while the continued prioritisation of research papers over digital work meant computing needs were often not as well funded.
“The Earlham Institute can fill a gap for researchers by providing collaborative environments,” he said. “Our system has been built specifically with scientists in mind.”
The Institute offers a complete private cloud with advantages including rapid access, extensive long term storage, user managed environments, and robust automated backups and archival storage.
Dr Emily Angiolini, Head of Advanced Training, showcased the Institute’s programmes for staff exchanges and training opportunities. EI offers introductory and advanced training in data organisation, cleaning and analysis as well as analysis of cellular genomics, population genomics and transcriptomics.
Head of Genomics Pipelines, Dr Karim Gharbi, described the advanced sequencing and bioinformatics work taking place at the Institute, with open access to the latest DNA and RNA sequencing technologies and specialist staff across laboratory, bioinformatics, and project management.
Single cell Laboratory Manager Andrew Goldson spoke on the Institute’s growing expertise in single-cell genomics and analysis and its cutting-edge facilities for profiling thousands of cells in parallel, and isolating large or difficult cells.
And the Earlham Biofoundry Manager, Dr Carolina Grandellis, covered the Biofoundry’s capacity for automated experimental workflows in large-scale projects, revolutionising the speed and scale of research and reducing cost.
The day finished with tours of the Institute’s state of the art advanced sequencing and single-cell labs and the Earlham Biofoundry.
Carolina Grandellis, Manager of the Biofoundry working with our lab automation equipment
We’d love to see you at next year’s EI Innovate. Be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter, where EI will share the latest news, events, and opportunities.
