Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency

08/04/2025

RIPE Researchers, in work done for the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, demonstrated that increasing the Rubisco enzyme in C4 crops like sorghum and sugar cane increases photosynthesis and yield as well!

Their work was published in the National Academy of Sciences proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2419943122

Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

Meta-analyses and theory show that with rising atmospheric [CO2], Rubisco has become the greatest limitation to light-saturated leaf CO2 assimilati...

07/04/2025

Tracy Lawson's fascination with plants started as a child on a farm in England and recently brought the globally recognized expert in plant biology across the pond to Illinois!

One of the Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois’ newest faculty members talks about her research and what she's looking forward to most in this new feature!

https://bit.ly/4jfguQQ

04/04/2025

Applied Microbiology International recently featured Yong-Su Jin’s work to modify bacteria to convert carbon dioxide into useful products by combining algae’s photosynthetic properties with bacteria’s production capabilities, overcoming a costly limitation faced by previous strategies.

Read the full feature here:

Most methods of genetically modifying the bacterium Escherichia coli and other microbes to convert carbon dioxide into useful biological products require additional carbon sources. A new study overcomes this limitation by combining the photosynthetic finesse of a single-celled algae with the product...

02/04/2025

Introducing PhotoGEA, an R package for curve fitting that enables users to develop data analysis pipelines for efficiently reading, processing, fitting, and analyzing photosynthetic gas exchange measurements.

Developed by RIPE team members, PhotoGEA was recently published in Plant, Cell & Environment. Read the full journal article here:

Fitting mechanistic models to gas exchange measurements is a key technique in plant physiology for understanding limitations to photosynthesis. PhotoGEA is a new R package for fitting C3 and C4 CO2 r...

24/03/2025

A RIPE team from the University of Illinois has determined that improving a crucial component of soybean photosynthesis is unlikely to come from traditional breeding methods, and that gene editing could be the key to unlocking soybean potential.

Their work was published in The Plant Journal

Journal article: https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.17219
News story: https://bit.ly/4iAM0ZN

Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

17/03/2025

11/03/2025

RIPE researchers from Lancaster University wrote a chapter in the latest volume of Methods in Enzymology, providing a protocol for using radiometric assays to measure Rubisco amount and activation in plant leaves.

Read more about their work here: https://bit.ly/3XzXW5h

Lancaster Environment Centre

06/03/2025

Our home institute, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, flipped the script on our communications manager Allie, interviewing her for a recent feature story!

Read about her journey in science communications here: https://bit.ly/3QNvAkk

28/02/2025

Current and former RIPE team members were invited to share their expertise in mesophyll conductance and provide commentary on a recent New Phytologist article.

Read Coralie Salesse-Smith and Yi Xiao article, “Mesophyll conductance and cell wall composition: insights from a meta-analysis across species,” https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70024

21/02/2025

This semester, RIPE will be joined by Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences at Illinois/University of Illinois Department of Communication student Maria Raza as our science communication intern! Maria will work with our communications team to share RIPE research news and also participate in mentorship and career preparation experiences.

Welcome to the team, Maria!

Read more about her here: