Fabulous #food #science research with @IFRScience in Norwich – finding out more for #NFDF2014.

If you read my earlier #NFDF2014 post about the Norwich Research Park, you will know Norfolk is home to an internationally respected cluster of bioscience institutes. One of these is the Institute of Food Research (IFR), which specialises in exploring the relationship between food and health. This includes researching the importance of gut bacteria to good health, preventing food related illnesses and developing healthier, more sustainable foods (including ways to reduce and reuse food waste).

IFR on Norwich Research Park

In early June, I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Tim Brocklehurst to find out a bit more about IFR’s research, including its work with commercial businesses. Tim started by explaining the basic difference between the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the IFR. “JIC’s focus in on how to grow more crops (pre-farm gate products). Whereas the IFR is looking at how we convert primary production into safe, nutritious, food (post-farm gate products) for the consumer.”

“So while JIC is concerned with, say, increasing wheat yields, we want to know if it is the right wheat for people’s health needs and how we can improve it. This might mean looking at how to change the level of long-chain sugar molecules (amylopectin and amylose) in wheat, which can influence diabetes, or exploring the way gut bacteria breaks down wheat starch and the effect this has on a person’s calorie intake. We are also interested in the way gut bacteria signals to the brain that we are full – the ‘satiety’ response.”

You are what you eat – possibly

The role of gut bacteria (or gut flora, if you prefer) in human health is pretty amazing – as are the number of different bacteria in our stomach. As some scientists like to point out, from the bacteria’s point of view we are just a giant bacteria hotel. There are more bacteria cells in our body (some 10 to the power of 13) than there are mammalian cells – and there are over 3,000 different species of bacteria in our gut. These micro-organisms control how we process food, absorb calories and vitamins, and even how we feel.

Image of gut bacteria – somewhat enlarged – courtesy of IFR.

“There is increasing evidence of a link between the state of our gut flora and health problems such as inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis),” says Tim, “as well as our mood swings. And there is some evidence that re-balancing the flora (using faecal transplants) might help reduce the symptoms of some of these ailments. However, this is a hugely complex area – we have to be careful about how we interpret the evidence and related claims, which is why we need to conduct more research to gather sufficient data.”

Growing capabilities

That is one of the many reasons why a proposed new Centre for Food and Health (CFH) will be so important not just for the Norwich Research Park but for food science in this country.

“The CFH will effectively be an ‘IFR Plus’,” explains Tim, “integrating our expertise with the skills of colleagues at JIC, The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), and the University Hospital. The presence of TGAC is particularly important because its high-speed gene sequencing capabilities enable us to conduct meta-genomic analysis on a scale we could only have dreamt of 10 years ago. We can now ask very detailed questions about what happens at the genetic level and the way diet might affect the genetic expression of proteins.”

Such genetic analysis may in time lead to the development of personalised nutrition, as well as personalised treatment for a range of diet related ailments. This is very exciting for the scientists but also creates significant business opportunities, which is why IFR is heading up a bid for European Union funding to set up a Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) specialising in food innovation. “The idea is to start with the scientific research and then partner with the business community to create new products, new jobs and economic growth to fund further research.”

From Farmer to Pharma

According to a recent independent report, every £1 invested the IFR already returns over £8 to the UK economy through the commercialisation of its research and its support for businesses. It does this through a number of routes, including the Food and Health Network, which Tim heads up. “The Network is our knowledge exchange for colleagues in the food, drink and health related industries.”

The IFR has also set up IFR Extra to work with companies on new product development, product enhancement and product safety. IFR Extra is also looking at ways to lower manufacturing costs by saving energy and water and reducing food waste, including working with partners on The Biorefinery Centre (also located on the Research Park) to convert waste into fuel.

Talented IFR scientists doing ground breaking research.

“This is a very exciting time to be a food scientist,” says Tim. “Not only is food the UK’s largest manufacturing sector but also globally we face huge challenges in producing enough safe and healthy food to feed a rapidly growing population, and doing so sustainably. This means there are numerous opportunities in both research and business to make a real difference to public health.

“Whether you want to do primary research to inform public policy (on say the level of sugar in food), work on improving foods or develop new medical treatments, this is the field to be in. The Norwich Research Park is already one of Europe’s largest single-site concentrations of research in Food, Health and Environmental Sciences – and it is set to grow rapidly over the next few years. So if you are a keen student or graduate, you should definitely look at the opportunities to work here.”

Thank you for your time Tim and a fascinating morning’s discussion.

@HuwSayer / @Business_Write

Mind-blowing #NFDF2014 visit to @GenomeAnalysis and @JohnInnesCentre on @NorwichResearch #Food #Science blog:

Well, I did say that being an #NFDF2014 champion wouldn’t be all fine dining – and so it was that last week I gave my taste buds a rest and put my little grey cells to work (yes, it hurt – a bit).

Norfolk – a global centre for #agritech research and development

I’d arranged to visit some of the facilities on the Norwich Research Park (NRP) – the John Innes Centre (JIC) and The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) – to find out more about the science behind our food. The tour took about two hours and was fascinating (even for a non-scientist like me).

Thank you to my expert guides: Dee Rawsthorne, PhD, Public Engagement Manager for Norwich BioScience Institutes; Kirsten McLay, ‎Platform and Pipelines Lab Manager at TGAC, and Hayley London, TGAC’s Marketing & Communications Officer. (Thank you also to Stuart Catchpole, Head of External Relations, for arranging the TGAC visit.)

In particular, I wanted to know how scientists in Norfolk are working to help farmers rise to two of the key challenges of the 21^st Century: climate change and the need to increase crop yields to feed a rapidly growing global population (which is expected to rise from just over 7bn now to over 9bn in 2050).

Agricultural and social challenges in the 21st century

Apparently, Professor Sir John Beddington, who was chief scientific advisor (2008-2013) to the UK government, once said: “By 2030 we will need 50% more food…and about 30% more fresh water…while mitigating and adapting to climate change.” He then went on to add what could be the biggest understatement of the century: “This could create the potential for conflict.” (Source: JIC brochure.) So you can see: we face quite a challenge to maintain food security.

Strange as it may seem – particularly if you only think of Norfolk in terms of Alan Partridge, old churches and turnips – the solutions to many of the challenges facing global agriculture might well be found by very clever people working not in our county’s fields but in the rapidly expanding NRP.

Did you know?

• Norfolk has a cluster of internationally respected bioscience institutes, including three specialising in plant biology (JIC), microbiology (TSL) and the production of nutritious and disease resistant foods (IFR), and one providing world-class analysis of animal, plant and microbe genomes (TGAC).
• Over 11,000 people, including some 3,000 scientists and senior clinicians, work at facilities based at the NRP (including the UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences and the University Hospital).
• Norwich ranks 4th in the UK for the number of “most highly cited scientists” after London, Cambridge and Oxford.
• The NRP is already home to “around 30 science related and IT businesses” and this number is set to grow when the new Centrum business centre opens sometime this year.
• The NRP is one of Europe’s leading centres for research in food, health and the environment.

So did you know any of that? Well neither did I – and I hadn’t appreciated the full scale of the NRP facilities and the range of highly specialised biosciences being studied and applied there. Although, I had heard about the new Beneforté broccoli with its higher levels of beneficial phyto-nutrients, which was developed by scientists at the IFR and JIC and is now sold in major UK supermarkets.

Sadly I wasn’t allowed to try the new, genetically modified, purple tomatoes developed by TSL scientists – but I can tell you they look delicious. Here’s a picture of me with some.

@HuwSayer @GenomeAnalysis @JohnInnesCentre @IFRScience @NorwichResearch thank you for coming! pic.twitter.com/8H8vHyMX27

— Dee Rawsthorne (@Rawsthorne) April 15, 2014

They produce higher levels of the antioxidant anthocyanin and have a longer shelf life than traditional tomatoes but I will probably have to visit the USA if I want to eat them.

As well as the research and training, the institutes based at the NRP are contributing to wealth and job creation, and generating high returns on the public investment for the UK economy. If you want to find out more – and to get involved in some of the public discussions you can go along to the Friends of John Innes Events or look out for Science for All events.

John Inness Centre and the search for yield

Whatever your views on climate change – there seems to be ample evidence that global agriculture is having to cope with more extreme weather conditions (prolonged draughts, extreme floods), as well as the depletion of fresh water reserves, soil degradation, pesticide resistant pests, herbicide resistant weeds, and more virulent diseases.  Finding ways to make crops naturally more resistant to these pressures would go a long way to reducing our dependence on expensive protective sprays and fertilisers, as well as ensuring our food security.

Wheat makes up 20% of the calories consumed by people across the world and as the population grows so does demand – but it is becoming harder and harder to boost yields without damaging the environment. In short, we need another Green Revolution. In the 1940s wheat farmers in the UK produced an average of 2.5 tonnes a hectare – now, thanks in large part to the work of scientists at the Plant Breeding Institute (now JIC) in cultivating new strains – UK famers produce 8 tonnes a hectare. However, the challenge over the next 20 years is to increase this to 20 tonnes a hectare – “20 in 20.”

One problem the scientists face is the stability of the wheat genome (particularly its Ph1 gene). This stability is a good thing because it prevents high grade wheat from randomly cross pollinating with wild varieties – but it is also a problem because it makes selective cross breeding for beneficial traits much harder. However, JIC scientists are now working on ways of temporarily shutting down the Ph1 gene to allow the introduction of important traits (such as drought or salt resistance, or nitrogen fixing root nodules similar to those found in peas) before switching it on again.

JIC is also home to the Germplasm Resources Unit (GRU), which has the most comprehensive collection of small grain cereals in the UK – many free of patents and intellectual property rights, so available for study by researchers and breeders. It holds the largest UK collection of wheat and its relatives, with some 10,000 varieties, as well as 10,000 varieties of barley (including conservation grade barley that’s important to the resurgent craft brewing industry), 3,000 oats and 3,500 peas. The wheat collection includes locally-adapted primitive varieties (or ‘landraces’) which form the basis of many of our modern varieties and could hold the genetic variations needed to develop new, more productive and resilient strains.

This sort of research can take many years. There are no quick fixes – you have to grow each generation of the crops to understand if the desired traits have been established. So it is good that, through the BBSRC, the various bioscience institutes on the NRP have continued to receive much needed funding.

TGAC’s advanced genome analysis speeds up plant research

One way of speeding up such research is to develop a better understanding of the genomes of animals, plants and microbes. So the JIC, IFR and TSL scientists are mighty lucky to have TGAC’s world class genome analysis and innovative bioinformatics facilities on their doorstep. Among many other things, TGAC is currently working on sequencing the genomes of wheat, barley, rice and sugar beet to name just a few of the crops it is helping food scientists understand and develop.

The equipment in TGAC is phenomenal – not least because of its computing power (it has a ‘3^rd generation technology’ PacBio RS II Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT®) DNA sequencing system – one of only three in the UK). Sequencing the human genome, which is some 3 gigabases long, took 10 years (between 1995 and 2005) – but TGAC can now sequence 600 gigabases in just 11 days on just one of their platforms. That’s particularly useful when you consider the wheat genome is some 17 gigabases.

TGAC Scientists working on PacBio RS II.

TGAC uses a number of different sequencing technologies, depending on the nature of the work and the size of the genome being studied. First it breaks each genome down into manageable chunks to enable ‘library construction’, it then rebuilds them to perform ‘downstream analysis’. It has an optical mapping system (again, one of only three in the UK) which enables it to visualise individual DNA molecules for use in comparative genomics.

As well as its work on plants, TGAC has helped Chris Packham analyse the soil in his garden, is looking at how different bacteria could make anaerobic waste disposal plants more effective, and is sequencing different strains of yeast which may benefit the brewing industry – I’ll drink to that. It also has a very good outreach programme for schools called TGAC4Kids, to encourage young scientists (aged 4-11), and the resources are free to use. And for older students (PhD and post-Doc) it is running a Bioinformatics summer school.

Finally, on twitter today, I read the news that TGAC has just been awarded £1.9m of government funding for a new DNA Synthesis Unit “to support the design, generation and exploitation of high value compounds and bio-actives obtained from plants and microbes.” This is great news and further confirmation of TGAC’s vital role in the development of advanced biosciences in this country. If you get the chance to visit any of the facilities at TGAC or elsewhere on the NRP, I urge you to leap at it.