Associate Professor

Email: Stephen.Jackson@warwick.ac.uk 

Phone: 024 765 22571

Office: D127 

Steve Jackson webpage

Research Clusters

Plant, Insect & Agricultural Biosciences

Warwick Centres and GRPs

Food GRP

Research Interests

My research focusses on developing improved approaches for gene editing in crop plants.

Gene editing technology is revolutionising crop breeding as it dramatically reduces the time required to breed new improved crop varieties, and this will help us to be able to produce new commercial crops that are more resilient to the changes in climate that are starting to cause big problems with crop production.

Gene editing enables us to make small changes to the plant’s own genes in order to make them more drought resistant, heat tolerant, or more resistant to pests and disease.

My own group are working on strategies to modify flowering time, for example to prevent early flowering caused by higher temperatures, and consequently increase crop yields.

Research: Technical Summary

My group are currently producing gene edited carrot lines with altered flowering times as a result of modifications introduced into the endogenous FT, GI, FRI and FLC genes. We are producing these carrot lines through transformation of protoplasts with ribonucleoproteins, followed by regeneration of the protoplasts into plants.

We are also trying to develop new gene editing approaches using broad host range viral vectors to deliver the Cas nuclease and sgRNAs into the shoot apical meristem. This would remove the requirement for plant regeneration and would greatly speed up the production of gene edited plants.

3rd Yr UG Research projects

I offer dry (desk based) projects relating to Climate Change and Gene Editing in Plants.

Example projects are:-

• Extreme Weather and its impact
• Can vertical farming make a significant contribution to food security?
• When is a GMO not a GMO?
• CRISPR Gene Editing Approaches
• Predicting the climate in the 2080’s – Consequences for Agriculture
• Predicting the climate in the 2080’s – Consequences for Health & Infrastructure