Healthy Plants. Healthy People. Healthy Planet.

Securing a safer, healthier and more sustainable future through the power of plant and microbial science The Healthy Plants, The John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Healthy People, Healthy Laboratory are at the forefront of efforts Planet (HP³) project is to bring this vision to life, but getting there requires a step change in capability that is only our vision for achieving a achievable through new ways of working. safer, healthier and more We are working with UKRI’s Biotechnology and sustainable future through Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) the power of plant and to develop the case for investment in our new infrastructure, and are seeking private capital microbial science. investment alongside public funding to enable us to realise our exciting and ambitious vision. Here, we lay out the near and very real threats facing humankind and the planet more widely, the potential for plant and microbial science The John Innes Centre is an independent, to overcome them, and why a UK hub for plant and microbial science would provide pivotal international research centre specialising resource for developing solutions. in plant science and microbiology. It is a registered charity funded by UKRI-BBSRC, the European Research Council and other charitable sources including the John Innes Foundation. The John Innes Centre uses genetic approaches to answer fundamental questions of bioscience, and to translate the answers into environmental and societal benefits. For more information, please contact Felicity Perry, Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory is a Communications and Engagement world-leading independent research at the John Innes Centre: institute that specialises in plant-microbe Email: [email protected] interactions, funded by The Gatsby Charitable Telephone: +44 (0) 1603 450 269 Mail: John Innes Centre, Foundation, The University of East Anglia and , UKRI-BBSRC. Its work is focused on leading NR4 7UH global efforts to reduce crop losses to disease.

2 3 The current COVID-19 Our response to the pandemic has also shown pandemic is a stark us that transformational collaboration at pace demonstration of our collective is possible. The John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory are uniquely positioned to vulnerability and a reminder lead the scientific advances needed to solve these that our world is more era-defining threats. Our exciting discoveries interconnected than we had ever in plant science, genetics, microbiology and plant-microbe interactions have had a huge realised. Damaging pathogens impact, but advances in technology, scientific could just as easily emerge in practice and computing mean there is even the form of crop diseases or greater potential to be realised. human infections by bacteria Working together in a new, collaborative, interdisciplinary and technology-driven way, we with antimicrobial resistance, aim to tackle and overcome the biggest threats putting our food security facing the world, making the scientific potential and health at enormous risk. of today meet the global challenges of tomorrow. With the required attention, collaboration and support, we believe that a revolution in plant and microbial research can be achieved that will help us deal with these era-defining challenges in a sustainable way that protects food security, enhances biodiversity and reduces the risk of future viral threats to humans or plants. We want to establish the very best plant and microbial science laboratory infrastructure anywhere in the world. Capital investment in cutting edge, future-proofed facilities will create a UK hub for world-leading plant and microbial research that will supercharge our national ability to translate scientific knowledge into practical solutions.

Professor Dale Sanders FRS Director, JIC

Professor Nick Talbot FRS Executive Director, TSL

4 5 Contents

01 Global risks: why we need to act now 08 Feeding the world: food security and sustainable agriculture 10 Human health risks: antimicrobial resistance and viral pandemics 11 Climate change and disruptions to food supply 12

02 Healthy Plants; Healthy People; Healthy Planet: 14 plant and microbial science as a solution

Healthy Plants: protecting and improving food sources sustainably 16 Healthy People: protecting humanity from disease and 18 unlocking the health benefits of plants and microbes

Healthy Planet: harnessing the power of plants 20 and microbes to combat climate change

03 HP³ in action: 22

Delivering the key levers of change 24 How we’re bringing our vision to life 26

04 The step-change needed to meet these challenges: 28 A national plant and microbial science hub to address global issues 30 Enable a new kind of scientific research 32 Support government policy and strategy 34

6 7 Every minute the world loses 23 hectares of arable land, yet every day there are Global 160,000 more mouths to feed. We take risks: why Feeding for granted an abundance of affordable the world produce year-round, but it comes at high we need to cost to wildlife and soil due to high-intensity agricultural practices. We must secure and act now increase yields in a sustainable way if we are We have a rapidly closing to supply enough food to feed the world. window of time in which to address three critical The death toll associated with antimicrobial resistance could reach 10 million a year challenges facing society by 2050: more than cancer and diabetes and the planet that Combating combined. Antibiotics - once highly global health effective at treating infections caused by sustains us. bacteria, parasites, and fungi increasingly threats fail to kill these microbes due to over-use. New and deadly viral infections are emerging that require rapid responses to develop cures. The recent COVID-19 1 pandemic demonstrates this vulnerability. Environmental degradation allows new pests and diseases to appear and old ones to re-emerge in food-growing regions, putting 40% of global crop yields Climate at risk. We must fight this threat while change dramatically decreasing the shocking carbon footprint of food production, which is responsible for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We must transform our entire agricultural system to increase resilience to this threat.

8 9 Feeding the world: food security Human health risks: antimicrobial and sustainable agriculture resistance and viral pandemics

A growing world population Population increases lead to a higher demand Many bacterial pathogens Antibiotics that were once highly effective requires an ever-increasing for food, while consumer demand forces have developed resistance to at treating infections caused by bacteria, volume of food to sustain commercial crop and food growers to yield antibiotics, while the current parasites and fungi are increasingly failing a greater variety of produce at affordable to kill the microbes they were designed to it. Every day, there are over prices. The result is high-intensity agricultural pandemic demonstrates a combat. The over-use of antibiotics has led 160,000 additional mouths practices, which degrade soil health and virus that resists existing to a widespread risk of ill-health or death to feed, with a decreasing jeopardise the success of future growth. anti-viral drugs. that was previously preventable. area of arable land A changing environment is also bringing Globally, it is predicted that deaths arising from new types of pests and diseases. When left antimicrobial resistance will reach 10 million available for growing the unchecked, these can result in decreases of a year by 2050. This would represent a higher food required to do so. crop yields of up to 40%. Current projections death toll than cancer and diabetes combined. suggest that there will be 2.1 billion more The financial incentive for the private sector to mouths to feed by 2050, and developing develop new antibiotics is limited given the high disease-resistant crops will be a key part costs of research and development and the of sustainably feeding them. likely limited lifetime of efficacy of any product. Simply put, we are not currently able to The wider economic and health produce food with a sufficiently high level of Deaths arising costs of antimicrobial resistance nutrients, or with a sufficient yield to fulfil represent a public threat that is future needs. Urgent action is required to from antimicrobial too large to ignore and cannot be improve the sustainability of agriculture, and resistance will considered the sole responsibility to protect plants from a growing threat of reach 10 million of the private sector. We must put in Food requirements pests and diseases. place a public sector delivery pipeline a year by 2050 that takes account of these risks. in sub-Saharan Plants are just as susceptible to pathogens as humans are, and recent events have shown There is a significant gap between the level Africa are expected we lack resilience in the face of emerging of research going into discovering new and to triple by 2050 diseases. A global pandemic affecting one effective antibiotics and the inputs required major food crop would be no less devastating to discover and synthesise new solutions. as a result of than COVID-19 in terms of its humanitarian We must close the gap between urgent public population growth consequences. health needs and private sector constraints.

10 11 Agricultural practices contribute up to 9% Climate change

and disruptions of the to food supply UK’s total greenhouse The climate emergency gas emissions, has the capacity to cause widespread disruption to global food supplies. Flooding with around half is as high a risk as drought when climate cycles change, and this volatility is having an increasingly damaging impact on our ability to create 1/2 a sustainable supply of food for a growing global population. of the This risk of flooding is coupled sector’s with the additional threat of carbon emissions arising higher temperatures and the from fertiliser production. impact they have on the fertility and therefore yields of the Beyond the material impact, these emissions world’s major crops. will have on the long-term health of the environment, the volume of undesirable gasses emitted represents a significant hurdle to any It is an irony that industrialised efforts to achieve net-zero targets. agriculture itself is a significant cause of the climate crisis that is putting food Current practices and products availability at risk. Huge quantities of Agriculture, forestry are also heavily reliant on fossil fuels used in the production of and other land use non-renewable resources. The fertilisers, coupled with environmental global, natural supply of rock degradation through deforestation, are account for 23% of phosphate which forms the basis some of the biggest and most avoidable global greenhouse of many agricultural fertilisers contributors to climate change. will be completely depleted gas emissions. within 200 years. The challenge is twofold: plants and crops must be developed that are resilient to environmental fluctuations, while agricultural practices and technologies must be developed to reduce the sector’s contribution to the problem. 12 13 Key to unlocking these benefits is a deeper understanding of the genetic variation of HP³: science-based plants and how to deploy that variation for the benefit of sustainable agriculture. solutions to the Advancements in We can generate genomics, bioinformatics world’s most and interpretation of large new crops that are data sets in the last two pressing challenges disease resistant, decades have unlocked The importance drought-proof, opportunities to harness of plants to life the power of plants to less reliant on shape and to help combat on Earth chemicals and also the challenges of climate is staggering. change, human health more nutritious threats and food security. Plants are the 98% By understanding plant genomes, we source of all can generate new crops that are disease resistant, drought-proof, less reliant on humankind’s chemicals and also more nutritious. food and Where previously we examined single genomes to uncover reactive solutions, produce 98% of the oxygen we technological advances mean that – with 2 the correct infrastructure – we begin to breathe. Along with the microbes breed plants predictively to create they interact with, plants contain pre-emptive solutions before emerging vast amounts of information threats have a chance to occur. that we study and translate into Extending these genomic analyses to soil microbes will generate biologically practical solutions. This is the based solutions to key issues including the degradation of soil health, the protection foundation of our Healthy Plants, of plant health and the discovery of new Healthy People, Healthy Planet antibiotics to protect human health. (HP³) vision.

14 15 Healthy Plants: protecting and improving food sources The challenge that must be REDUCING CROP LOSS TO DISEASE USING GENETICS TO overcome in order to solve Improving disease resistance in plants has a IMPROVE CROP YIELDS the food security crisis is direct positive impact on yields, as fewer crops It has been estimated that only 10% of complex. We must find a way are destroyed by damaging pathogens. the genetic potential within wheat has to increase the yield and In 2016 global trade saw the wheat blast fungus, been exploited to date because of typically isolated to South America, arrive in only 10% of the complex nature of the wheat nutritional value of crops, Bangladesh, where it destroyed 15,000 hectares genome. Advances in genomics while reducing the area of of wheat, resulting in yield losses of 25-30% and the genetic will enable a closer understanding land, volume of water and threatening wheat production across South Asia. potential within of plants and a greater ability As climate change enables pathogens to wheat has been to develop revolutionary new number of chemicals spread across the world to regions where varieties of crops that feed required to achieve this. major food crops are grown, the need for exploited to date more people with fewer inputs. effective disease resistance will only increase. With improved connectivity, enhanced Two approaches are central Advances in genomic sequencing allow us scientific capabilities and closer to meeting this challenge: to map not only the genetic make-up of plants, coordination, we are seeing greater improving disease resistance but also that of pathogens. This allows us to numbers of global collaborations to improve and increasing yields. identify ways to harness strategic genetic the yields, resilience and nutritional value advantages of the plants we aim to protect, of wheat, which is second only to rice as a boosting immunity to these pathogens. source of calories consumed worldwide. For example, the CEPAMS partnership between the John Innes Centre and the Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the most advanced Sino-UK collaborations in the life sciences and is exploring how plant-microbe interactions can boost yields and how plants’ molecular reactions to environmental stresses such as drought or heat can be harnessed to improve crop resilience.

16 17 New technologies are Healthy People: Protecting now allowing us to move humanity from disease and from the prescriptive to the predictive – enabling unlocking the health benefits preventative work to of plants and microbes neutralise emerging threats before they The ways in which plants Advanced imaging and genomic can become a interact with microbes in sequencing techniques allow us to mine plants for substances that real danger. their natural environments inhibit damaging microbes – such provide valuable information as plant pathogens or even human that can be harnessed disease-causing agents. This field to develop antibiotics, has already delivered information and solutions contributing to responses to vaccines, and other clinical diseases such as zika virus and polio. products to combat existing The potential to deploy this to other and emerging threats to viral threats to human health is vast. human health. New technologies are now allowing us to move from the prescriptive to the predictive – enabling preventative work to neutralise emerging threats before they can become a real danger. The need for these interventions will only grow as climate-induced epidemiological unpredictability increases.

18 19 Healthy Planet: harnessing the power of plants and microbes to combat climate change REDUCING GREENHOUSE GAS In recent decades, a UNDERSTANDING PLANT GENES AND EMISSIONS THROUGH GREATER near-inverse relationship has THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTIONS BIODIVERSITY AND SOIL HEALTH developed between the health Key to reducing the level of inputs required in A promotion of plant health beyond the of the environment and crop agriculture is finding ways to improve the sphere of agriculture is vital in any effort to outputs. As the latter has amount of nutrients that plants absorb from reduce the volume of carbon emitted into their surroundings. If plants can absorb greater the atmosphere. Through greater biodiversity improved, the former has amounts of crucial materials from their natural the amount of carbon captured by plants declined. Plant and microbial environment and effectively resist pathogens, through photosynthesis or absorbed by soil science offer a route to then chemical inputs will decrease. Protecting will increase, with a reciprocal reduction in soil health is a core part of these efforts, as is the levels released into the atmosphere. decoupling these trends. the genetic improvement of plants. An improvement in biodiversity will be a By sequencing multiple plant genomes, we are natural consequence of a lower reliance able to alter the effectiveness with which plants on chemical inputs and more sustainable assimilate key nutrients such as nitrogen from agriculture. As more efficient land use due to their surrounding environment. Understanding greater crop yields increases, and soil damage the relationship between genes inside plants caused by chemicals decreases, biodiversity and how they respond to their surroundings will and soil health will improve, enabling a be a pivotal step towards reducing the amount greater volume of carbon to be sequestered. of fossil fuel-based fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides required to grow crops.

A promotion of plant health beyond the sphere of agriculture is vital in any effort to reduce the volume of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.

20 21 HP³ in action: The John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory are uniquely positioned to drive scientific advances that will solve many of the world’s biggest environmental and 3health challenges.

22 23 Our work delivers the five key levers needed to harness the power of BIG DATA analysis to sequence genes at a plants and microbes rate unimaginable only a few years ago; accelerating desirable attributes such as bigger grain size in wheat or yields in oilseed rape.

TRAINING the world’s smartest minds in plant DISCOVERY of solutions and microbial science. enabling agri-business and pharmaceuticals to create products with profound societal impact, such as the Designing Future Wheat programme.

SUPPORT for industry and To date, work the private sector by extending our capabilities to allow organisations PARTNERSHIPS with research undertaken at both to conduct the most and academic institutions in the UK and institutes has resulted sophisticated interdisciplinary worldwide to tackle emerging threats, in a number of research and product such as ash dieback, Xylella, and development at pace. currently unforeseen threats ground-breaking to food production and and practical human health. solutions to global challenges. Our work is the result of academic research as well as intense collaboration with the private sector to explore specific and applied scientific solutions to societal problems and economic development.

24 25 FINDING SOLUTIONS TO REACTIVE AND PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES How we’re bringing our vision to life INDUSTRIAL CHALLENGES AGAINST PLANT DISEASES

The John Innes Centre and The In the recent case of ash-dieback – a devastating Sainsbury Laboratory’s expertise pathogen that affects ash trees and could cost UNLOCKING A £4.3 BIOFORTIFYING in the practical application of plant- the UK £7 billion over the next six years – The BILLION OPPORTUNITY GRAINS TO COMBAT and microbial-based discoveries Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre and is the basis for expansive neighbouring led through their IN THE WHEAT GENOME MALNOURISHMENT collaboration with industry. own funding the sequencing of the pathogen to Private sector collaboration identify genetic strategies to combat it. The value of It has been estimated that globally is a core function of the John Our expertise in microbial science has also enabled Innes Centre and The Sainsbury partnerships between The Sainsbury Laboratory historic John Innes Laboratory, and our institutions and the BecA-ILRI Hub in Kenya, and International Centre discoveries play a vital role in extending our Potato Centre in Uganda, for example, to develop in wheat are worth capabilities to industry, allowing new disease-resistant varieties of rice and 43% organisations to conduct crucial potatoes for sub-Saharan Africa. £4.9 billion globally. product research and development of children that would not be possible in-house. USING PLANT AND MICROBIAL SCIENCE Using multiple state-of-the-art AS A TEST BED FOR NEW VACCINES genetic approaches, John Innes Our capabilities lead to the Centre scientists have unlocked creation of products and Hypertrans, a John Innes Centre-developed some of the hidden potential for technologies that enable platform for synthesising viral particles in plants, increased yield within the wheat 29% businesses to thrive, creating is now at the forefront of developing vaccines genome. By controlling the genetic significant economic value across to COVID-19, zika, polio, and animal infections mechanism that determines seed of women multiple sectors. As a hub and focal such as Bluetongue virus in sheep. point for research, we allow ideas size, increases in grain weight of Practical applications will be crucial in the to evolve into commercial realities up to 13% are now possible. development in vaccines for other existing of reproductive for societal benefit. The value of historic John Innes age have anaemia, and and emergent viral infections. An example can Centre discoveries in wheat are be seen in vaccine adjuvants originating from worth £4.9 billion globally. The about half of these cases rare South American trees which centre’s current wheat programme result from iron deficiency. For every £1 invested in are now being produced in standard will generate an additional £4.3 laboratory plants to address billion in global gross value-added the John Innes Centre, biodiversity and health Issues. over the next 25 years through £14 is generated for the In addition, a key discovery made Zinc deficiency is associated with stunted growth 3 improved productivity. at the Sainsbury Laboratory, in children under the age of 5 years and reported to wider UK economy. HP RNA interference, has led to a affect approximately 155 million children globally. will boost productivity completely new class of drug Recent research by the John Innes Centre into and efficiency, increasing for human healthcare, recently the wheat genome has produced a variant approved by both the Food and that contains twice the typical amount of iron, return on investment. Drug Administration in the United something that cannot be achieved by normal States, and the NHS in the UK. breeding and is made possible only by the latest developments in scientific practices.

26 27 The core of the current John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory buildings were The step-change established in the 1960s. That core facility on this world-leading centre is requiring extensive, needed to meet day-to-day maintenance for buildings that – for the most part – will have to be demolished these challenges within the next decade. We already have commitments from the private and charity Our expertise in plant genetics sector to fund a new, state-of-the-art estate, and disease, cell biology but we require further investment to make and plant interactions with our vision a reality. Investment will enable a step change in the environment have for a the way our science is carried out, enabling century made major scientific interdisciplinary research that embraces artificial intelligence, machine learning and breakthroughs shaping the robotics, bio-imaging, and genomic, proteomic world we live in. Ensuring the and metabolomic platform technologies. We need to decompartmentalise our working benefits of these breakthroughs practices to fuel closer collaboration, allowing are realised for the next century us to throw everything at our Through this projects from the world of biology, will require a step change in physics, genomics, computing, 4 investment the and data science. the way we work, utilising UK will emerge as cutting-edge technologies, It is through these approaches the global leader that new and transformative the latest ways of working, insights will be made, producing in the innovations an unprecedented understanding and access to the world’s necessary to feed of crop science, nutrition, disease best scientific thinkers. response and food security. Through the world sustainably this investment the UK will emerge and protect human as the global leader in the innovations health for the necessary to feed the world sustainably and protect human next century. health for the next century.

28 29 Transforming the UK into an international hub for plant and microbial science

By creating the world’s Upgraded facilities will also mean that the John foremost hub of plant and Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory will Investment will translate be accessible to other research and academic into a step change not microbial science – open institutions. By extending facilities and field for business to a global research capabilities to other organisations, the only for the John Innes audience – private sector UK’s entire capacity for making critical discoveries Centre and The Sainsbury organisations will have in plant and microbial science will be elevated. Laboratory, but also into access to a one-stop shop Investment will translate into a step change not only for the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury a fundamental shift in the housing the field’s greatest Laboratory, but also into a fundamental shift in UK scientific community’s scientific minds. Access to the UK scientific community’s ability to turn its ability to turn its innovation this kind of creativity and innovation and creativity into solutions that will underpin the way the world eats and protects and creativity into solutions expertise will accelerate the human health for the next century and beyond. that will underpin the way discovery and creation of new This vision is closely aligned with the objectives products and technologies, of UKRI as set out in their Strategic Prospectus the world eats and protects and Infrastructure Roadmap. with far-reaching impacts human health for the next and commercial value. century and beyond.

30 31 THE GREATEST MINDS, COMBINED: ENCOURAGING INTERDISCIPLINARY WORK The complexity of current global challenges requires solutions created through not only biology Meeting the Enabling a and microbiology, but also data ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY: science, physics and chemistry world’s biggest new kind of ENHANCED OUTPUTS and many other disciplines. challenges requires The latest technologies will enable New facilities will literally break down state-of-the-art scientific us to examine the information barriers between these capabilities, housed within plants and microbes allowing us to take a holistic and facilities, designed with a level of accuracy that will richer view of scientific challenges in a completely new research transform our understanding of and questions, and to analyse and them. Our current facilities cannot problem-solve at a system level, rather way to support the house this equipment. than in isolated contexts. innovative science of the next century.

FROM REACTIVE TO OPEN FOR BUSINESS: ENABLING PREDICTIVE: HARNESSING AI EXTERNAL COLLABORATION AND MACHINE LEARNING An expanded physical capacity Combined with more advanced for research will allow us to be imaging capabilities, facilities truly open for business, designed to house the most extending our research and field powerful computational trial capabilities to national and infrastructure will allow us to model global research institutions and interactions between genes and private sector organisations. potential environmental factors. An international hub of this kind We will be able to ‘war game’ many will catapult the innovation and more environmental scenarios to discovery potential of institutions help us create crops that we know and organisations across the world, will not only survive, but thrive generating huge economic value within them, just as we will be able and even greater agricultural, to ensure we are prepared for environmental and social benefits. the next global health threat.

32 33 Supporting government policy SUPPORTING THE UK’S The Agriculture Bill currently being examined SUPPORTING THE UK’S Investment in a new estate will revolutionise AGRICULTURAL AND by Parliament is an opportunity to secure a INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury CROP STRATEGIES resilient, sustainable and biodiverse future Laboratory’s capabilities, and therefore the for UK agriculture. The bill acknowledges that potential benefits of research and private our agricultural system must go beyond crop sector partners. The resultant uplift in production and also prioritise the promotion collaboration and partnerships will drive of clean air, clean water, and biodiversity, and greater inward investment into plant and to reduce the risk of environmental hazards. microbial science work while contributing The establishment of a state-of-the-art, significantly to the fulfilment of the UK national plant and microbial science hub Government’s commitment to increasing in Norwich will see our ability to fulfil the R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. ambition of the bill increase dramatically by The boost to inward investment that this will providing the best innovators in the country enable will be dramatic, positioning us and the with a platform to produce solutions to broader as the world’s our biggest agricultural and environmental foremost hub for the application of genomics challenges. In doing so, the capabilities and to agriculture and human health. outputs of the Norwich Research Park will accelerate while the broader East of England economy will thrive. SUPPORTING THE UK’S With the latest technologies and ways of The agriculture, food CLEAN GROWTH GOALS working, we can create even more crops The gross and drink sector in the requiring even less inputs, driving the clean East of England already growth effort laid out in the Grand Challenges value-added impacts employs nearly 80,000 of the Government’s Industrial Strategy by of our work will be people, and a new hub contributing to the UK’s clean growth efforts. would not only boost Success in this area will see the agricultural worth over £300 the sector’s efficiency sector’s use of and reliance on fossil fuel-derived and innovation, but million to the UK chemicals decrease significantly. By exporting also attract inward these advances internationally, we will see across the next investment, new UK-based outputs contributing to global talent and create decade, and a reductions in GHG emissions, with far-reaching further commercial environmental and health benefits. further £5.7 billion opportunities within it. internationally.

34 35 www.jic.ac.uk www.tsl.ac.uk

Email: [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0) 1603 450 269