Patron Group: Engineering Synthetic Gene Clusters and Genetic Syntax for Crop Protection
Supervisor:
Dr Nicola Patron
This is a fully-funded 4-year Gatsby Sainsbury Studentship. Further information is available at: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/engineering-synthetic-gene-clusters-and-genetic-syntax-for-crop-protection/?p198813 Applicants must be eligible for home fees and must email Dr. Patron (njp56@cam.ac.uk) a one-page CV and a one-page personal statement outlining their research interests, experience and skills by 13th November 2026. Please use the email subject ‘Gatsby Application 2027’. After this deadline, one applicant will be selected and mentored to prepare for an interview with Gatsby Foundation on Friday 8th January 2027.
Background:
Plants have evolved a complex arsenal of mechanical and chemical defences to deter or harm herbivores and insect pests. These adaptations ensure survival by making the plant unpalatable, physically impenetrable, toxic, or difficult to digest. For example, Solanaceous plants produce acyl sugars in glandular trichomes that interfere with insect feeding. Other species produce pyrethroids or limonoids that impart toxicity or bitter tastes or upon leaf damage. Often these chemicals are not a single molecule, but an array of chemically similar compounds. However, we are only just beginning to understand the causes and consequences of metabolite structural diversity.
Importance of Research:
Bitter and toxic protective compounds are rarely abundant in edible crop plants as their presence has been reduced by selective breeding. Insect pests are predominantly managed using broad-spectrum, chemically synthesised pesticides. In some cases these have negative impacts on beneficial species and on the ecosystems of agricultural soils and the waterways that they leach into. Furthermore, up to 20 per cent of crops are still lost to insect pests and the pathogens they transmit with losses predicted to increase by 10-25% for every 1°C increase in global mean surface temperature.
Project Summary:
Over the past decade, 'omics technologies have rapidly expanded our understanding of biosynthetic pathways, opening new avenues for novel crop protection products and strategies. However, progress remains constrained by difficulty in accessing bioactive compounds, technical challenges in controlling the spatial and temporal expression of complex pathways, and an incomplete understanding of how metabolic complexity influences efficacy. This project aims to overcome these limitations by applying constructive, synthetic biology approaches.
What with the successful applicant do?
The goals of the project are to develop suites of synthetic regulators with cell-type specific and/or condition responsive functions; to optimise synthetic gene clusters using emerging evidence about the important of genetic syntax in multi-gene constructs; to investigate synthetic split systems for rapid production of defence compounds. Depending on the interests and skills of the student, there is also the potential to use protein design to explore the production and utility of natural and novel metabolic variants.