2019 Laureate Profile: Professor Barry Pogson

 

Professor Barry Pogson 

Administering Organisation: The Australian National University
Discipline area: Biological Sciences and Biotechnology

Fellowship project summary: 

FL190100056: The Fellowship aims to produce transformative solutions targeting crop resilience and food security. The chloroplast, the site of photosynthesis, regulates a suite of cellular processes that control photosynthesis, growth and drought resilience. It is expected that a first ever blueprint of the suite of communication networks used by the chloroplast will be discovered. I will use synthetic biology to rewire the network in order to generate 'smart plants' that are higher-yielding and more resilient in both good and bad seasons by precisely switching on and off resilience. Such re-imaginings of crop systems, inclusive of societal implications, will help chart the future of Australian agriculture.

Australian Research Council funding: $2,795,000

About Professor Pogson

Barry Pogson is a Professor in the Research School of Biology at The Australian National University.

He is plant biologist and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, whose research investigates the controls and regulators of communication between the chloroplast and nucleus of plant cells. Professor Pogson’s research has led to an understanding of a chloroplast-to-nucleus signalling pathway which underlies drought tolerance of plants and how energy organelles sense the environment and create plant responses which encourage growth and stress resistance. His project aims to contribute to providing solutions to food security challenges in Australia and world wide. He supports a nationwide, integrated, large scale mission to face these challenges.

For his research achievements, he was elected as a Corresponding Member for the American Society of Plant Biology in 2018. He was awarded a Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers in 2019 and received the Australian Government National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2017.

Find out more about Professor Pogson’s research by visiting his profile page on The Australian National University website. For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme page on the ARC website.

Image credit: Lannon Harley/The Australian National University.