MRes in Cereal Science in Edinburgh United Kingdom | Heriot-Watt University

Financial support has been secured to establish advanced research infrastructure for molecular biology and genetic engineering studies on cereal crops.

The new resources will encompass tissue culture labs, a biolistic gene delivery system for plant cell transformation, and controlled-environment growth chambers. Our work centers on both theoretical and practical investigations of cereal crops and Arabidopsis, with primary emphasis on molecular signaling mechanisms and the biochemical processes during barley germination. Although we're currently incorporating beneficial genes into barley, our primary objective is employing transgenic techniques to decipher cereal physiology rather than creating genetically modified food products. Conventional cereal research includes barley malting studies focusing on starch composition across different genetic varieties, examination of barley maltase isoenzymes, transformation of wheat starch into fermentable sugars for whisky production, and analysis of mitochondrial metabolic pathways related to energy generation during seed dormancy.