Academic CentreOn April 5, 2024 projects “EditGrass4Food” final conference took place at University of Latvia House of Nature.
LU prof. and project leader Nils Rostoks informed about the projects overall aims and research activities, as well as results and future cooperation with partner organizations, ensuring the sustainability of results and project impact. LU senior researcher Anete Borodušķe presented about the genetic transformation of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) using ectopic expression of morphogenic regulators. Also explained, why genetic transformation of ryegrass is needed - for discovery, validation and taking advantage of the phenotype-genotype causality linkage, genetic improvement of the major forage crop for the better performance and higher biomass quality in diverse and changing agroclimatic conditions, etc. Prof. Odd Arne Rognli from Norwegian University of Life Sciences ( NMBU) held a presentation about challenges to breed resilient perennial grass cultivars, covering topics as methods and challenges for breeding forage grasses, breeding for abiotic stress tolerance, prospects of using it in phenomics, genomic selection and genetic modifications and climate change effects. Senior researcher from Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) Cecilia Sarmiento informed about the regulation of new genomic techniques in the EU. Senior researcher from Lithuanian Research center for agriculture and forestry Kristina Jaškūnė held an interesting presentation about abiotic stress response in ryegrasses : old problems and new opportunities, covering topics as lolium perene origin and diversity, abiotic stresses: freezing resistance, etc.PhD student from NMBU Akhil Reddy Pashapu held a presentation about transcriptome profiling reveals insight into the cold response of perennial ryegrass, addressing the topics like importance of perennial ryegrass and current challenges, winter survival, freezing stress responses, transcriptome analysis, candidate genes to improve freezing tolerance in ryegrass. PHD student from TalTech Ferenz Sustek presented a detailed process of genome editing in perennial ryegrass protoplasts with CRISPR-CAS method and the conclusions.
The conference was attended by around 80 participants ( in ZOOM and in person). Representatives from all project partner institutions, as well as from Latvian Council of Science and Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia were present.
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