The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) has awarded a significant international grant to researchers at Australia’s Macquarie University to help develop synthetic chromosomes for agricultural crops — an initiative aimed at transforming global food production.
Leading the Australian contribution to this global effort are Distinguished Professor Ian Paulsen, Director of the ARC Centre for Synthetic Biology and the Australian Genome Foundry (AGF), and AGF Chief Scientist Dr. Briardo Llorente.
The project, backed by a $13.2 million AUD (£6.6 million GBP) ARIA grant, brings together Macquarie University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Western Australia, and UK-based biotech company Phytoform. Macquarie University’s work will also receive an additional $450,000 AUD from Bioplatforms Australia, bringing its total funding to approximately $1.25 million AUD, according to a press release.
“This project can enable a significant advance in synthetic biology for agriculture,” says Llorente. “By creating synthetic chromosomes for crops, we can develop plants with new capabilities beyond what conventional breeding or gene editing can achieve.”
The research is part of ARIA’s Synthetic Plants Programme, which unites social scientists, synthetic biologists, and plant biologists to engineer a new generation of crops with improved resilience to environmental stress and reduced reliance on natural resources.
The initiative aims to strengthen global food security and promote sustainable agriculture in response to mounting challenges such as rising temperatures, more frequent heatwaves and extreme weather, expanding pest and disease threats, soil degradation, and the decline of pollinator populations — all intensified by climate change.
“By developing synthetic chromosomes that are viable in living plants, we can equip plants with new functionalities, from reducing agricultural water use to protecting crop yields under challenging climate conditions,” says Paulsen.
This project marks a major advancement in plant synthetic biology.
Beyond the scientific goals, the broader ARIA programme also supports teams focused on public engagement and examining the social and ethical implications of these emerging technologies.
