Article People Learning

Training the next generation of data-driven plant scientists

Boundless curiosity and the desire to make a difference are often the twin pillars that drive scientists in their career. And this is especially true for Chinemerem Akamihe, whose passion for learning and helping others has already set her on a fantastic path for success.

02 July 2026

Having already earned two master’s degrees, Chinemerem is now coming to the end of a John Innes Foundation-funded internship at the Earlham Institute. This year-long placement supports the next generation of data-driven plant scientists, and for Chinemerem, it’s been an opportunity to continue developing her skills and knowledge towards her career goals.

Chinemerem Akamihe networking during a recent Engineering Biology showcase day

Chinemerem Akamihe

Building a knowledge base

At school Chinemerem was always told how good she was at science and maths. Following this encouragement, and inspired by many CSI movies, Chinemerem initially explored forensics as a potential career, before accidentally stumbling upon biotechnology. 

“I started learning about the role of cells and living systems, how complex they are and how we can utilise them for improving our daily lives, it was fascinating! I then completed a 6-month industry placement at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) where I was introduced to plant science,” said Chinemerem. 

It was there that she became fascinated with the complex physiology of plants. “At first plants seem like simple, inanimate objects, but there are so many biological processes happening under the surface - they’re reacting and adapting to their environment, seeking food and nutrients and responding to light and stress,” she adds.

Following an undergraduate degree which focused on drought tolerance in Bambara groundnut, Chinemerem applied for two Masters’ projects - the first in her home country of Nigeria studying molecular markers for genetic diversity in Lima Bean, and the second was in Crop Science at University of Cambridge, investigating the effect of stomatal density on reproductive heat tolerance. 

“Thanks to funding support I was fortunate to be accepted to both Master’s programmes. They had a slightly overlapping timeline but with support from my supervisors and the school, I was able to complete my first Masters’ before moving to Cambridge for the second, meaning I was able to study both water stress in an under-resourced crop, and heat stress in model plants,” she explains.

JIF Intern Chinemerem explains her work to ARIA Synethic Plants programme lead Dr Angie Burnett
Potato plantlets growing in a medium in a glass jar

Above: Chinemerem speaking to ARIA Synethic Plants Programme Director Angie Burnett, explaining her work on potato tubers in the Earlham Biofoundry

Engineering plants

This experience has provided Chinemerem with a well-rounded perspective of plant science, and the perfect foundation to start her plant-sciences internship at Earlham Institute. 

Here, Chinemerem has been working with the Earlham Biofoundry Group, contributing to an ARIA-funded project to engineer synthetic plant chromosomes in potatoes.

“Before I applied for the project, I wasn’t aware of what a Biofoundry was, so I did a lot of reading and learned much more about them. The more research I did, the more I found links to my long-term ambitions and research motivations, so it made perfect sense to be here,” she says.

Working with colleagues in synthetic biology, robotic platforms, and microbiology, Chinemerem has been developing a semi-automated protocol for isolating and transfecting protoplasts from potato tubers. 

“The Institute is so open and welcoming and the Biofoundry team has been so supportive. People genuinely care - they ask questions, are interested in my responses, and they care about helping their colleagues. To do science you need a collaborative environment and that’s been the main highlight for me.” 

Engineering Synthetic Plant Chromosomes (synPACs)

Advances in synthetic genomics have created significant opportunities for engineering biology, enabling the rapid design and construction of biology at a scale to address fundamental scientific questions.

As part of the ARIA project, the Earlham Biofoundry is leading the assembly and testing of a library of potato regulatory elements - DNA sequences that control when and where genes are ‘switched on’. The team wants to understand whether regulatory activity measured in existing leaf cells is different when tested in cells derived from potato tubers. 

To answer this, they needed a high-throughput system that could measure and compare across a large number of regulatory elements.

Read more about the project

The fact that science has gotten to a point where we can attempt something like this is mindblowing and working in the Biofoundry has opened my mind up to being more audacious with the types of research I do in the future.

“Coming from zero experience in engineering biology, it’s been an incredibly informative experience. I've learned so much and my thinking has broadened in terms of how to gain answers to biological questions, especially in plant science," Chinemerem says.

The Earlham Biofoundry uses high-throughput automated protocols to increase the scale and speed of experiments. Chinemerem is working with protoplasts (plant cells with the outer cell wall removed) which provide a good platform for high-throughput testing and validation. However, protoplast isolation and transfection are technically demanding and labour-intensive. In the Biofoundry, they are working to streamline some of these processes by developing protocols to automate transfection. 

“The ARIA synthetic chromosomes project has shown me just how much untapped knowledge there is - so much we can still learn and achieve, it's so future-facing, and is just a glimpse of what is possible with the right tools," she adds.

“The fact that science has gotten to a point where we can attempt something like this is mind-blowing and working in the Biofoundry has opened my mind up to being more audacious with the types of research I do in the future. 

Chinemerem and colleagues from the Earlham Biofoundry delivered a training workshop on automation and engineering biology in plant and microbial sciences
Year in Industry student Ted Holtom sits with colleagues from the Earlham Biofoundry team during a break in the automation training course

The Institute is so open and welcoming and the Biofoundry team has been so supportive. People genuinely care - they ask questions, are interested in my responses, and they care about helping their colleagues. To do science you need a collaborative environment and that’s been the main highlight for me.

Curiosity-driven research

For Chinemerem, it’s these possibilities that drive her curiosity. Wanting to know how plants function, and how that knowledge can be used to improve lives and society. 

From her early education to now, Chinemerem has developed a drive and tenacity to make a difference, and her internship has only strengthened this ambition - building her understanding of how biology can be engineered to solve complex problems. 

“I think that gaining knowledge gives you the responsibility to pass that down, and use the knowledge to benefit others. Where I grew up, you can see the impacts of climate change in the people you meet - people who rely on these crops for their livelihoods and economic stability, for nutrition,” she explains.

As she comes to the end of her internship Chineremem remains committed to these goals, and is soon heading off to start her PhD at Umeå University.

“I’m excited to start work on microproteins in tomato floral development. The project brings in a lot of engineering biology disciplines, with a lot of traditional plant physiology, so that feels like a full circle moment for me. It is also going to involve a lot of computational work which is new to me and I’m excited about that learning opportunity.”

Tags: Earlham Biofoundry, Engineering Biology, Plant Science

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