An ERC consolidator at IPS2 : Moussa Benhamed

The « 3Dwheat » project

In an era of global warming, heat stress poses a major threat for the stability and the increase of crop yields. Plants have evolved a variety of sophisticated mechanisms to adapt to harsh environments. In particular, epigenetic regulations allow them to dynamically reprogram their transcription machinery to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Wheat is the number one traded cereal in the world, and demand is expected to increase by 60% by 2050.

The primary goal of the 3DWeat project is to gain a deeper understanding of the initiation of heat stress resistance in wheat by developing a new three-dimensional (D) functional genomics approach, integrating epigenomic (1D), transcriptomic (2D) and chromatin architecture (3D) data.

This project also aims to develop innovative tools for new breeding strategies that will exploit epigenetic variability in addition to genetic diversity.

Moussa Benhamed, Professor of Biology (University Paris Cité) at IPS2 

Le 08/04/2022