Dr Alex Johnson has been awarded nearly $300,000 to work with the Bill Gates-funded HarvestPlus Challenge Program to increase iron content in rice and other cereal grains.
More than two billion people – or 30% of the world's population – suffer from iron deficiency, which can cause anaemia, poor mental development, fertility problems and a depressed immune system.
Dr Johnson, who is based at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics at the Waite Campus, will work on increasing iron content in cereal foods by improving the delivery of iron from the leaf to the seed.
"Iron content is quite low in cereal grains because although iron is present in a plant's leaves, very little of that iron is transported to the seed, which is the part that is consumed by humans.
"We know of several proteins that move iron around in a plant so it is a matter of increasing the flow of iron into a seed tissue called endosperm, which survives the milling and polishing process."
If this can be achieved, the benefits to developing countries in particular will be enormous, Dr Johnson says.
Rice and wheat, the two most widely consumed cereals in developing countries, transport only a small fraction of iron to the developing grain – 5% for rice and 20% for wheat. Furthermore, the small amount of iron that is retained accumulates almost exclusively in the outer layers, which are removed during the milling process so that grain can be stored for long periods.
"In the western world we can get around this problem by adding various compounds to flour to make it rich in iron. But iron fortification of flour is only economical for developed countries. Poor nations can't afford this so we have to find a sustainable way of increasing iron in the milled seed."
Higher iron content could also lower the production costs of many Australian farmers by reducing or eliminating the need for iron fortification of wheat flour.
Source: University of Adelaide
Related stories:
The Antarctic deep sea gets colder
The Antarctic deep sea gets colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. This is the first result of the Polarstern expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association that has just ended in Punta Arenas/Chile. At the same time satellite images from the Antarctic summer have shown the largest sea-ice extent on record. In the coming years autonomous measuring buoys will be used to find out whether the cold Antarctic summer induces a new trend or was only a "slip".
Cut from different cloth
A large survey, made with ESO's VLT, has shed light on our Galaxy's ancestry. After determining the chemical composition of over 2000 stars in the four nearest dwarf galaxies to our own, astronomers have demonstrated fundamental differences in their make-up, casting doubt on the theory that these diminutive galaxies could ever have formed the building blocks of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Shapeways lets Internet users manufacture goods
In a step toward the type of future pictured in the hit film "Iron Man," a firm in the Netherlands is letting people fabricate items designed in three-dimensions on the Internet.
Veterinarians adapt human tests for monkeys
A medical test developed to detect an overload of iron in humans has recently been adapted to screen for the condition in some distant relatives: diminutive monkeys from South America, according to veterinarians at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Scientists break record by finding northernmost hydrothermal vent field
Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found black smoker vents farther north than anyone has ever seen before. The cluster of five vents – one towering nearly four stories in height – are venting water as hot as 570 F.
89 percent of children's food products provide poor nutritional quality
Nine out of ten regular food items aimed specifically at children have a poor nutritional content – because of high levels of sugar, fat or sodium - according to a detailed study of 367 products published in the July issue of the UK-based journal
Obesity Reviews.
Fortified cassava could provide a day's nutrition in a single meal
Scientists have determined how to fortify the cassava plant, a staple root crop in many developing countries, with enough vitamins, minerals and protein to provide the poor and malnourished with a day's worth of nutrition in a single meal.
Lavas from Hawaiian volcano contain fingerprint of planetary formation
Hikers visiting the Kilauea Iki crater in Hawaii today walk along a mostly flat surface of sparsely vegetated basalt. It looks like parking lot asphalt, but in November and December 1959, it emitted the orange glow of newly erupted lava.
