Tolga Bozkurt

New Capabilities

Group leader at Imperial College London

For three decades, rapid plant gene testing has centered on one species: Nicotiana benthamiana, a nightshade that accepts foreign DNA with unusual ease. On October 15, a UK-Taiwan team reported that an engineered bacterium, Rhizobium rhizogenes strain AS109, delivers transient gene expression across most of 30 dicot species tested, including faba bean, cowpea, common bean, and field mustard.

Updated Oct 19