BSc Biology

Green Biotechnology is a rapidly expanding field within modern biotechnology and involves the exploitation of plants and algae not only for the sustainable production of food, but also their utilisation as a source of renewable energy as a biofuel, and as a novel means to generate pharmaceuticals and other novel products. In addition, Green Biotechnology is aimed at developing more environmentally friendly processes compared to traditional industrial agriculture or chemical industry methods.

This unit will examine the technologies of plant genetic engineering and explore how these are used to generate more efficient crop plants, healthy and nutritious foods, and other commercially attractive products.

Students will be able to:

• Understand how sustainable biotechnology can be achieved using plants

• Critically analyse and understand how to exploit the methods for how plants can be genetically manipulated

• Understand and be able to discuss how plant genetic engineering can be used to improve food production, generate healthy and nutritious foods, deliver renewable energy via plants, and enable high-value products (including pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, biofuels, biomaterials) production using plants

• Understand how to make use of fundamental knowledge of plant processes in order to exploit plants for biotechnology

• Understand and be able to discuss some of the important aspects for the commercialisation of plant biotechnology

• Understand how to identify and interpret primary research findings in order to propose new research questions and develop new plant biotechnology applications 

Course content will be provided in the form of lectures, material on Canvas, and student-led workshop seminars where groups of students will address questions on recent research paper advances related to each topic.

• Precision plant engineering: methods and mechanisms of plant genetic transformation and transgene integration; endogenous gene silencing and its applications; genome editing.

• Engineering plants for improved nutrition: generating plants with improved vitamin and nutrient content - the golden rice story; alteration of plant metabolism.

• Biotic stress tolerant crops: new approaches and strategies for tolerating plant pests and disease.

• Biofuels from plants: biofuel potential, problems and solutions and ethical considerations.

• Plants for health: generation of ’superfoods’ by engineering secondary metabolism.

• Current topics in plant biotechnology: some of the latest insights and innovation in the field of plant biotechnology through evaluation of new research papers.

Collective formative feedback on group answered questions; individual feedback on marked coursework; optional feedback on outline plan of coursework report; question/answer course round-up and revision session.

 Primary research literature with links provided on Canvas