By Alison Caldwell
Read the stories of four researchers working on the front lines
The links between climate change and human health are becoming increasingly obvious: pollution, extreme weather events, food scarcity, pathogen spread.
Meet a few of the University of Chicago researchers who are tackling this monumental issue, one challenge at a time.
Targeting food insecurity with plant biology
Achieving tenure as a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago gave Chuan He, PhD, the freedom to start something new.
“I decided to not just be a chemist,” he said. “And I started to think about what I could work on, and landed on RNA modifications. When we started in this field, there was very little research in this arena at the time, but recently the field has exploded because it turns out to be vital to all kinds of biological processes.”
In 2021, He and collaborators published a groundbreaking study showing that by inserting the FTO gene, which affects RNA modification, into rice, the plants grew three times more rice in the lab and 50% more rice in the field. The rice plants also grew longer roots, were better able to withstand stress from drought and photosynthesized more efficiently. Additional experiments in potato plants yielded similar results.
Now He is the director of the Pritzker Plant Biology Center, a new space to expand his RNA modification work and the research of other scientists searching for innovative ways to promote plant growth and resilience and increase crop yield.