Gates Cambridge: Impact in Plant Sciences
Over the last 25 years, Gates Cambridge Scholars have made an impact in a broad array of disciplines, including Plant Sciences. From addressing concerns about food security to climate change and regeneration Gates Cambridge plant scientists have contributed to new ways of building global resilience.
Here we look at the work of some of those Scholars.
Innovation
Dr Andre Holzer-Rosenhauer’s work has the potential to advance research that will shape the future of sustainable agriculture and biotechnology through his company’s development of new, user-friendly tools and its approach to key computational challenges.
Andre [2017] is a German scientist and entrepreneur specialising in biotechnology, genomics and computational biology.
His PhD in Plant Sciences, which he finished in 2021, investigated the genomic, transcriptomic and metabolic responses of microalgae to vitamin B12 availability and contributed to a better understanding of algal metabolism and microbial interactions.
While at Cambridge Andre and two other graduates, including Gates Cambridge Scholar Max Stammnitz [2016], co-founded PuntSeq, a citizen science initiative which explored the use of portable DNA sequencing for environmental monitoring.
In 2021, the initiative co-authored an eLife study which demonstrated a cost-effective nanopore sequencing approach to analysing microbial communities in freshwater, with potential applications in environmental research and water quality monitoring.
After his PhD, Andre became a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and Saarland University's Center for Bioinformatics, working at the intersection of plant and microbial genomics.
Andre says plant and algal genomics remain key areas of his work. He also founded Holzer Scientific, a genomics start-up based in Saarbrücken, Germany.
By combining advanced bioinformatics with modern sequencing technologies, Holzer Scientific pioneers genomic analysis in environmental monitoring, green biotechnology and healthcare tailored for academic, clinical and industrial partners.
Through developing software and data analysis solutions the aim is to make real-time DNA sequencing more accessible to laboratories, empowering researchers, accelerating scientific discovery and enabling more efficient genomic analysis.
With its bioinformatics expertise, the Holzer Scientific team supports highly ambitious research projects. This includes an international initiative in programmable plant biology funded by the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) under its Synthetic Plants programme.
Andre says: “Our team supports the project's ambition to advance plant biotechnology beyond editing inherited traits by enabling entirely new biological capabilities, laying the groundwork for next-generation plants with valuable new traits.
Education and impact
Carol Ibe [2015] is CEO of JR Biotek, a charity she set up before starting her PhD, which trains, upskills and empowers present and future African agricultural research scientists to develop and lead high-impact projects that address food and nutrition insecurity on the continent. But while she was a Scholar, doing her PhD in Plant Sciences which explored gene function during wheat infection by wheat yellow rust, she developed it further, bringing students from across Africa to Cambridge to learn about the latest in biotechnology knowledge.
Carol, who has been shortlisted for the inaugural University of Cambridge Alumni Awards, is now Executive Director of the Agri-Innovation & Impact project, which aims to safeguard Africa’s agricultural heritage while creating new opportunities for farmers and scientists. It involves farmers and scientists working side by side to design innovations rooted in tradition, informed by culture and scaled for impact. The project comes under the aegis of JR Biotek.
Climate change, environment and ecosystems
Several Scholars are looking at innovative ways to address climate change and its causes.
Andrew Tanentzap [2007] founded the Ecosystems and Global Change group in the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge in 2013, where he was the Professor of Global Change Ecology until 2023. It aimed to inform policy and management of ways to mitigate the negative impacts of global environmental change on the benefits that ecosystems deliver to people.
During that time, Andrew supervised three Gates Cambridge Scholars - Amelia Fitch [2016], a Postdoctoral Fellow at Oregon State University who is working on one of 27 major ecosystem research sites funded through the National Science Foundation, Anne Thomas [2018], a plant ecologist and Assistant Professor in Brigham Young University’s Biology Department, and Erika Freeman [2018], a biogeochemist who is currently Group Leader at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.
Andrew Tanentzap
Andrew Tanentzap
Andrew recently took up a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and Northern Ecosystems and provides institutional leadership as a Full Professor at Trent University in Ontario.
Most of his work involves research in the molecular processes underpinning the global carbon cycle.
He has also been able to strengthen his lifelong passion for plant science and runs a small-scale, intensive farm that provides food for many members of his local community weekly at markets throughout the Peterborough region, producing over 70 varieties of fruits and vegetables with organic, permaculture and ecologically-inspired practices.
He recently won two highly prestigious awards to continue his research - the Killam NRC Paul Corkum Fellowship for Canadian researchers who distinguish themselves in the fields of social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, health sciences or engineering and the NSERC Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship, which is given to the top early-stage researchers in Canada.
Andrew was also elected into the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2023.
Emma Sayer [2001] is Professor in Ecosystem Ecology at Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University. Her research investigates how ecosystems respond to change and how interactions between above- and belowground processes affect ecosystem function. She is also Senior Editor for Functional Ecology.
Chai Hao Chiu [2017] did his PhD on the biological processes that underlie how plants perceive and interact with their environment – especially the widespread and ancient symbiosis between plants and beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi.
He is now doing his Postdoctorate in the Cereal Symbiosis Group in the Department of Plant Sciences.
In the private sector, Jacquelyne Poon [2012] is working on Scope 3 decarbonisation and regenerative agriculture topics across the food value chain as Senior Sustainability Officer at OCP Nutricrops. Most of his work involves research in the molecular processes underpinning the global carbon cycle.
Sustainability, food security and regeneration
In an age of climate change, food security is a vital research area. Several Scholars are looking to create more resilient food crops.
Greg Reeves [2014] has built a career based on using plant science to feed people better. For his Master's, Greg studied chilli peppers. He found a new gene for disease resistance, helped sequence the chilli genome and broke the world record for the hottest pepper.
At Cambridge, his PhD in Plant Sciences set out to bring the more efficient C4 photosynthesis of plants into less efficient crops such as rice and wheat, which could raise yields substantially. Greg created a new breeding method that uses grafting to make new hybrids. Along the way he made an unexpected discovery. Grasses, cereals, bananas and palms had long been thought impossible to graft, and Greg showed that they can. The breakthrough was published in Nature and gives growers worldwide a new tool for making key food crops more resilient.
Today Greg has achieved the goal he set out with: he is a plant breeder. As Head of Breeding at the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre, the largest kiwifruit breeding effort in the world, he leads six programmes across five facilities in New Zealand, with evaluation operations in Italy. His team uses conventional breeding, advanced genomics and biotechnology to speed up the creation of new kiwifruit with striking colours, great flavour and more nutrients, including vitamin C, dietary fibre, antioxidants, vitamin E and folate.
"Kiwifruit is already one of the world's healthiest fruits," says Greg. "With modern genomics we can make it even better, faster, and get more nutrition into people's diets around the world."
Greg still breeds chillies as a hobby. At home he works with a local New Zealand chilli farmer to develop new varieties.
Greg worked in Cambridge with fellow Gates Cambridge Scholar Anoop Tripathi [2022], who went on to win a Gates Cambridge Impact Award for his research in Plant Sciences on cross-hybridisation of plants. His PhD aims to improve the photosynthetic properties of rice plants, making them able to grow with less water. He says the research has the potential to increase rice production by 50%, leading to greater food security for the world.
Aland Chan [2019] did his PhD in Plant Sciences, based in the Forest Ecology and Conservation Group. His research focused on studying forest growth and succession on degraded landscapes. He now works in the Centre for Landscape Regeneration at the University of Cambridge, which aims to provide the knowledge and tools necessary to regenerate the British countryside using cost-effective nature-based solutions.
From genomics to space policy
Some Plant Sciences Scholars have moved into different areas of research. Dr Senthilkumar A Natesan [2001] is now a genomics leader with over 15 years of experience in reproductive genetics, molecular biology and product development. Currently Genomics Director at Genea Biomedx, he previously held senior roles at Vitrolife and Illumina, where he led product development, global product strategy, and technical innovation.
Senthil did his PhD in Plant Sciences where he worked on the molecular basis of communication between plastids, membrane-bound organelles found in the cells of plants, algae and some other eukaryotic organisms. His work has a strong focus on delivering impactful genomic solutions for fertility and genetic testing markets worldwide.
Other Scholars have remained in science, but moved into business, while still others have migrated over to the policy world.
Vaibhav Bhardwaj's PhD research focused on understanding symbiotic interactions between algae and bacteria in order to be able to grow algae on a large scale in open pond systems and in the dense cultures necessary for industrial cultivation.
He is now Science Solutions Consultant at software company Benchling.
Christian Boehm [2013] is now Germany's Attaché on Technology and Space to the European Union.
He is working on the first unified legal framework governing space activities in the EU. His previous role in the German government involved developing and managing funding programmes on biodiversity and ecosystem research.
Christian did his PhD at Cambridge in Plant Sciences on plant synthetic biology, in particularly applying biological engineering to promote sustainability.
While at Cambridge he also founded the European Synthetic Biology Society EUSynBioS in 2014.
Cambridge University Herbarium
Cambridge University Herbarium
The past
Barbara Neto-Bradley [2021] is the Herbarium Manager at the Cambridge University Herbarium as part of the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. The Herbarium’s estimated 1.1 million dried plant specimens provide a window into the past, a record of three centuries of plants, their environments and the people who collected them.
Photo of Borneo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash
Photo of Borneo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash
The future
Current Plant Sciences Scholars include Julia Weiss [2024] who is studying avian communities in Borneo to unravel temporal changes within logged and pristine forests and assess how climate change might exacerbate the impacts of land degradation.
For his PhD Daniel Ginzberg [2022] studies how plants tell time and how the circadian clock helps plants anticipate and adapt to environmental fluctuations. The aim is to breed more efficient, productive and sustainable crops.
Annie Shelton's research goes beyond the realms of the Earth to improve food resilience. Her PhD in Plant Sciences focuses on how to build resilient food systems in extreme environments that can enable people to thrive both on Earth and in space. Annie [2025 ] has worked on the Crop Production Team at NASA Kennedy Space Centre as both an intern and a contracted scientist.
