A new research collaboration aims to develop new methods and tools to non-invasively monitor the growth and performance of plants used in the production of Virus-Like Particles (VLPs). In doing so, the research will help to optimise the biotechnology for plant-based vaccine development.
Initiated and supported by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Agri-Technology (CEAT) and ANU Innovation, the project will involve researchers from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) – supported APPF, ANU’s Research School of Biology (RSB) and the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), in collaboration with Canadian biopharmaceutical company, Medicago R&D Inc.
In this initial project, the APPF’s Plant Phenomics Group at ANU – that includes Dr Tim Brown and Dr Richard Poire-Lassus – is contributing its full range of facilities and expertise in phenomics, bioinformatics, and data visualisation, as well as access to state of the art equipment and infrastructure such as hyperspectral scanning, and sophisticated controlled environment growth chambers.
