Danforth Center Scientist leads new Department of Energy Grant to unlock the secrets of sorghum photosynthesis
In Missouri, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center said that a new five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research will fund a multi-institutional effort to improve how sorghum captures and manages energy through photosynthesis. The $5.7-million project is led by Dr. Ru Zhang, Associate Member and Principal Investigator at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
The Danforth Center was founded on the premise that fundamental plant science — understanding how plants grow, adapt, and produce energy — is essential to addressing global challenges in food, fuel, and climate. This project takes that premise into the field: by uncovering why sorghum, one of the world’s most important bioenergy feedstocks, loses productivity under heat, drought, and fluctuating light, the team aims to generate knowledge that can be translated directly into more resilient, higher-yielding crops, the entity said.
At the heart of the challenge is photosynthesis, the process by which sorghum converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars. This process depends on precise coordination between two distinct leaf cell types: mesophyll and bundle sheath cells. Under stress, that coordination is compromised — and a key hypothesis driving the research is that leaves exposed to high levels of light accumulate excess sugar faster than it can be transported to the rest of the plant, triggering a feedback loop that suppresses photosynthesis, especially during full sunlight conditions in the field.
“Sorghum has remarkable potential as a bioenergy crop, but we still don’t fully understand the molecular and cellular rules governing how it manages photosynthesis under challenging field conditions and distributes the sugars its leaves make,” said Dr. Zhang. “This project lets us dig into those mechanisms at a systems level — combining field physiology, cell-type-specific molecular analyses, advanced 3D imaging, and AI-driven modeling — so we can identify the precise points to intervene and design plants that are genuinely smarter about regulating photosynthesis and carbon distribution under stress.”
Category: Food & Agriculture
