Response to reviewer #3: #WillYouShutUpMan ?

Melanie-Jayne Howes @KewScience Natural product drug discovery: untapped potential of world’s plants & fungi, 2 in 5 plants estimated at risk of extinction = loss of chemical & genetic diversity, but 4000 new species identified in 2019! Kew collections support important research.

An Indian teacher from a village school wins $1M Global Teacher Prize. And gives half of it away to other teachers in the short list. He was recognized for improving the education of girls. bbc.com/news/education…

You are a closer cousin to a catfish than a catfish is to a dogfish.

Katalin Kariko, the scientist behind the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine france24.com/en/americas/20…

What is an mRNA #vaccine, and why does it work against #COVID19? If you are confused by the jargon, I break it down for you here! Pfizer Inc. Moderna kevinfolta.medium.com/anatomy-of-the…

Give this woman a Nobel Prize. bit.ly/3aQUMm6 UPenn "told me that they’d had a meeting and concluded that I was not of faculty quality,” she said. ”When I told them I was leaving, they laughed at me and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website.’”

Not very sharp

Now the EU and Organic Standards must consider banning 'grafting' of plants as new research shows that plant cells exchange plastids between grafted tissues, and thus technically generate GMOs! H.t. Chad Niederhuth advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/1/ea…

Forwarded. Ducks

Did you know there’s a bacterium that degrades plastic? A new study by the Sinskey lab & Christopher Voigt examines the kinetics of the plastic-degrading enzyme from this bacterium, in order to aid recycling and bioremediation efforts. Via Scientific Reports: go.nature.com/2N4sfQh

Dark side of plant domestication! Salute to all folks in pre-history who died experimenting with poisonous plants, so that you could now safely have coffee, tea, chocolate, beer, Ramen & pizza!

Virtually every aspect of the COVID vaccine, from the lipid nanoparticles to the mRNA technology, was developed in academic labs using public funds. But in the public's mind the credit goes to companies like Moderna/Pfizer. This is a missed opportunity to celebrate basic research

Nature evolved gear mechanisms long before we invented them! 😯 cam.ac.uk/research/news/…

The global coalition IndiaCovidSOS is in place with 100+ academics, clinicians, bioengineers, community members working 24/7. This is first output from group; our goal is to bring clinically validated solutions and help. We need global community to engage - time is running out!

Liam Dolan, MoA Technology with fascinating insights into turning innovation into a new company that aims to discover a new generation of safer herbicides, countering resistance and enabling food security.

Individual innovations that saved most lives! Those opposing synthetic fertilizers and green revolution today would not even be here if not for those innovations they detest.

Enjoyed writing this review with Lichman Lab on plant biosynthetic pathway discovery, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks Michael Krogh Jensen for the invite!

PhD opportunity still open! - looking for applicants working towards/completed bachelors or masters degrees. All expertise welcome - plants, chemistry, genetics, bioinformatics, biochem etc - as project is interdisciplinary and co-created