Associate Professor Jenny Mortimer
Chief Investigator, ARC Training Centre for Future Crops Development
Associate Professor, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine
Areas of Research Interest –
Plant Cell Walls, Synthetic Biology, Plant Transformation Technologies, Biofuels and Bioproducts, Glycans
Expertise & Skills –
Plant tissue culture and transformation, glycosyltransferase and glycosylhydrolase characterization, synthetic biology
5 Key Research Papers –
• Demirer G, Silva TN, Jackson C, Thomas J, Ehrhardt E, Rhee S, Mortimer JC, Landry M (2021). Nanotechnology to advance CRISPR-Cas genetic engineering of plants. Nature Nanotech. 16:243-250. doi: 10.1038/s41565-021-00854-y
• Gao Y, Lipton AS, Wittmer Y, Murray DT, Mortimer JC (2020) A grass-specific cellulose–xylan interaction dominates in sorghum secondary cell walls. Nature Comms, 11:6081, doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19837-z
• Sechet J, Htwe S, Urbanowicz B, Agyeman A, Feng W, Ishikawa T, Colomes M, Satish Kumar K, Kawai-Yamada M, Dinneny JR, O’Neill MA, Mortimer JC. Suppressing Arabidopsis GGLT1 affects growth by reducing the L-galactose content and borate cross-linking of rhamnogalacturonan II. Plant J. 96:1036-1050 doi: 10.1111/tpj.14088
• Ishikawa T, Fang L, Rennie E, Sechet J, Yan J, Jing B, Moore W, Cahoon EB, Scheller HV, Kawai-Yamada M, Mortimer JC (2018). GINT1 is a GIPC GlcNAc glycosyltransferase. Plant Phys. 177:938-952. doi: 10.1104/pp.18.00396
• Fang L, Ishikawa T, Rennie EA, Murawska GM, Lao J, Yan J, Tsai AYL, Baidoo EEK, Xu J, Keasling JD, Demura T, Kawai-Yamada M, Scheller HV, Mortimer JC (2016). Loss of inositol phosphorylceramide sphingolipid mannosylation induces plant immune responses and reduces cellulose content in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 28:2991-3004
Available Research Projects –
• Program 3a Technological Innovations in Plant Genome Engineering
• Program 3b SynBio Applications
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE GENETIC & FIELD TECHNOLOGIES FOR FUTURE CROPS
The ARC Training Centre for Accelerated Future Crops Development is funded by the Australian Research Council under its Industrial Transformation Training Hubs Program to run from 2022 to 2027.
It is a collaboration of universities, government research agencies and the Australian grains sector’s key stakeholders in training, R&D, social engagement, responsible innovation, breeding, marketing and delivery.
It also has international partners in gene-editing, SynBio, crop breeding, and, other partnerships for co-developing deep technologies to transform the agriculture industry and global food security.