Title: “The molecular detection of carbon dioxide” 

Carbon dioxide is one of the most important gases on Earth and an absolute requirement for life. The global biome faces long term increases in atmospheric CO₂, predicted to have a significant physiological impact on crops. Further, chronic increased PCO₂ levels in the blood in obesity contribute to increased mortality, morbidity and healthcare costs. Understanding the biology of CO₂ is therefore of pressing strategic importance. Here I will briefly summarise our work on the identification of cell signalling pathways that respond to carbon dioxide, our development of technology to identify carbon dioxide mediated post-translational modifications in animal, plant and microbial experimental models, and our recent identification of a new carbon dioxide receptor.