Dr Alexander Darlington from the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick has received one of sixteen fellowships in the 20th cohort of Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships. His research focusses on engineering and biotechnology and addresses key challenges to the industrialisation of engineered microbes.

The research he will embark upon includes designing new genetic control systems which dynamically balance growth with engineered function to maintain good performance over real-world timescales. Working with industrial partners he is applying these methods to the biomanufacture of high value chemicals, allowing everyday chemicals to be produced from agricultural waste products instead of petrochemical feedstocks.

The food we eat is responsible for one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans. Food system activities, including growing, transporting, packaging and disposal, have significant climate impacts. How should we connect and communicate food and climate change in order to influence producers and policymakers? Whose role is it to empower consumers to make measured decisions?

Join two leading food system experts – Professor Sarah Bridle of the University of Manchester, and Dan Crossley of the Food Ethics Council – as they delve into the thorny issues around engaging people on the climate change impacts of food.

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As part of a monthly series of articles featuring the eight finalists in the 2020 BBC Gardeners World Magazine Gardens of the Year competition, Andy Gladman, a Crop Centre PhD student and one of the finaliists is featured in March's edition with his Leamington Spa ornamental allotment.

The six page article plots his journey, 'driven from a lifelong passion for plants', especially kniphofia, echinops, verbena and buddleias and the set back of living in a top floor north facing flat, in transforming an overgrown allotment plot in 2018 from 'a field of couch grass and bindweed' to an 'astonishingly vibrant and drought tolerant garden'.

With his interest in plant diversity there are 'around 100 cultivars of kniphofia (red hot poker) that he has been trying to accumulate and his plan is to apply for a National Collection status for these and his echinops (globe thistle).

Working on a tight budget and with using materials that otherwise would go to waste as a very important aspect to him,' seed sowing and recycling have been key'. 'The entire path is made up of pavers from a fellow allotmenteer's old driveway' and both greenhouses, furniture in the summer house and one of the greenhouses and water trough are either secondhand or from charity shops.

Many of the plants are a haven for insects and the bees are 'everywhere'. He noted a lot of butterfly diversity when taking part in the Big Butterfly Count 2020 and believes the allotment holders are pleased with the amount of pollinators his garden attracts to the allotments.

More information - Gardeners World Magazine, March 2021, pgs 72-77.
Andy Gladman is a PhD student with Dr Dave Chandler.

As Temperatures rise due to global warming the need to protect plants from stressful conditions has increased, as stress can cause a loss in yield and cause further impact economically. A consortium led by the University of Warwick's School of Life Sciences Professor Jose Gutierrez-Marcos have successfully identified two proteins that protect crops from stress, which is key in safeguarding food production.

Press Release (1 March 2021)