Dr John Sheehy The project was initiated by John when he was at the International Rice Research Institute, and he led Phase I until his retirement. John passed away in 2019 leaving the C4 rice project as his scientific legacy.
Professor Erik Murchie. Erik is a Professor of Applied Plant Physiology at the University of Nottingham. He was a member of the Phase I team, carrying out screens of EMS mutagenized rice lines.
Professor Richard Leegood Richard is currently an Honorary Academic at the University of Sheffield. He was a member of the Phase I team, purifying C4 enzymes to generate antibodies.
Professor Gerry Edwards Gerry is Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology at Washington State University. His research focused on photosynthesis, including investigations into the effects of environmental stress and global climate change. Studies included research into the mechanisms and evolution of carbon assimilation in C4, C3 and CAM plants. Gerry is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a consortium member in Phases I & II and continued to advise during Phase III.
Dr Tom Brutnell Tom currently runs a genetics and genomics consultancy company. His research group were partners in the consortium during Phases I, II & III.
Professor Xinguang Zhu. Xinguang is Group Leader at the CAS-Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology. His research focuses on photosynthesis systems biology, in particular on developing and applying systems models of photosynthesis to identify new options to manipulate photosynthetic systems for enhanced efficiency. During Phases I – III of the C4 rice project, Xinguang’s team focused on developing systems models of C4
Professor W. Paul Quick. Paul led the C4 rice team at IRRI during Phase II. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Sheffield in the UK. His research focused on plant photosynthesis and the partitioning of photosynthate into food end-products. He took over as project lead for Phase I when John Sheehy retired, led Phase II, and was a consortium member in Phase III.
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Professor Rowan Sage. Rowan is Professor of Plant Biology in the Ecology and Evolution Department at Toronto. His research addresses physiological mechanisms governing photosynthetic responses to CO2 and temperature, and the ecophysiology of C4 plant evolution. He is noted for identifying the number of independent origins of C4 photosynthesis. Rowan was a scientific advisor for Phases I & II and an associate member in Phase III..
Professor Tammy Sage. Tammy is an Associate Professor of Plant Biology in the Ecology and Evolution Department at Toronto. Her research focuses on elucidating the cellular and developmental events associated with the evolution of C4 photosynthesis, and the developmental physiology of the unique aspects of the rice leaf. Her work aims to understand the functional significance of plant structure in an evolutionary context. Tammy was a consortium member during Phases II & III..
Professor Andreas Weber. Andreas is Professor of Plant Biochemistry at Heinrich Heine University. His research interests include function and evolution of C4 photosynthesis and photorespiration; cellular compartmentation of metabolic networks in plants; endosymbiosis and the evolution of plastids; and algal functional genomics and biology of the Cyanidiales. His longstanding interest in metabolite transport underpinned his C4 rice research, which focused on the identification and characterization of transporter proteins. Andreas was a consortium member during Phase III..
Professor Peter Westhoff. Peter is Emeritus Professor of Plant Developmental and Molecular Biology at Heinrich Heine University. His group discovered cis-regulatory elements involved in mesophyll and bundle sheath specific gene expression in C4 species. The group also identified genes required for bundle sheath cell differentiation in Arabidopsis, aiming to use this information to alter the rice bundle sheath. Peter was a consortium member throughout Phases I-III and was an associate member in Phase IV.
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Professor Alain Tissier Alain is head of the Department of Cell and Metabolic Biology at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry. His research focuses on understanding the metabolic network of specialized plant metabolic cell factories, such as glandular trichomes or laticifers. He is also interested in metabolic engineering and synthetic regulatory circuits in plants and has developed molecular tools to support these research efforts. His group were involved in Phase IV, developing synthetic dTALE/STAP systems to express multiple transgenes from a single promoter in rice.
Dr Caitlin Byrt Caitlin is a principal investigator in plant biology at ANU and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her research is focused on investigating the physiological roles of specific subsets of a type of membrane intrinsic protein in plants called aquaporins, which influence water, salt and nutrient transport. Her previous research led to the identification and characterization of mechanisms in plants that contribute to environmental stress tolerance, such as mechanisms linked to salinity tolerance in cereals. Her group contributed to transporter protein analysis during Phase IV.
Professor Mark Stitt Mark is an Emeritus Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Physiology, having been a Department Director for many years. His research addresses the regulation of central metabolic pathways in plants, especially photosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism. Together with John Lunn, his group refined methods to use stable isotope labeling and liquid chromatography linked with tandem mass spectrometry to gain deeper insights into the path of carbon in both C3 and C4 photosynthesis. His group carried out metabolic analysis of transgenic rice lines in Phases III & IV.
Dr John Lunn John is a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Physiology. He has a long-standing interest in understanding how plants determine the fate of carbon fixed during photosynthesis. His current work focuses on the sugar-signalling metabolite, trehalose 6-phosphate, with the long term goal of understanding carbon allocation at the whole-plant level. With Mark Stitt, John analysed metabolite profiles in transgenic rice lines during Phases III & IV.
Professor Susanne von Caemmerer Susanne is Emeritus Professor of Molecular Plant Physiology at ANU. Her research focused on CO2 fixation including the biochemistry of C3 and C4 photosynthesis and the regulation of CO2 diffusion in leaves. She worked across scales in biochemistry, molecular biology & plant physiology, combining mathematical modelling with experimental verification. She is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, The Royal Society of London and the German Academy of Scientists. Susanne was a founding member of the C4 Rice consortium, contributing throughout Phases I-IV.
Professor Steve Kelly Steve is Professor at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Wild Bioscience. His group uses bioinformatic, computational and experimental approaches to understand the genetic regulation of photosynthesis in both C3 and C4 plants. He is particularly interested in understanding how the regulation of photosynthesis has changed during plant evolution, and aims to use this knowledge to engineer photosynthesis in crop plants. His group provided bioinformatics and computational support for all members of the C4 Rice Project during Phases II-IV.
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