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Māori tribes, or “Iwi”, are well integrated into modern society but generally retain very strong links to their traditional land and communities. Those that have remained rural, have been very reliant on agricultural and forestry for their livelihoods. Many individuals who have migrated to the cities have maintained strong links to regional areas. Uptake of new technologies by Māori has usually been quick, except in cases where economic hardship has prevented uptake. However, as far as genetic techniques are concerned, the literature suggests there are more Māori positioned on the anti-GM end of the spectrum.  

Māori are innovative. As traditionally they were agriculturally based, being farmers and harvesters of seafood, trying new things and approaches was and is important. However, GM or gene editing challenges several culturally-specific sensitivities.  An example is a stronger sense of relatedness/genealogy (termed whakapapa) is a key concept for Māori communities. DNA, and its change, over the generations is therefore generally a more sensitive issue to Māori than European groups. Similarly, it is generally thought it is better to not change the essence (termed mauri) of a species as each species has its own unique qualities. 

Where Māori farmers are involved their agricultural practices are modern. One aspect to remember is that Māori farmers are unlikely to shift production to other places, as they are on a certain area of land long-term (due to their strong sense of belonging to the land, as well as owning the land). There is a wide range of farming practices amongst the Māori community from basic farming through to highly technological farming including organics. 

Many of the tools developed by CHIC for general audiences will transfer. More emphasis on open conversations and debate (meetings termed, “hui”); these are the practice by which Māori groups come to a consensus. However, centralized decision making (such as a Government law or policy) isn’t the best way of convincing Maori groups. Local and regional discussions are more important; catchphrase – Local issues, local solutions.  

Long-term plans are more important than short-term gains. Climate change is a major concern. Māori have a strong sense of guardianship (kaitiakitanga) over their land and resources and climate change threatens this.  

Are you interested to source the biochemical diversity of the plant kingdom as a contribution to a sustainable green economy and for the production of high value chemicals?

Our partner Wageningen University & Research is looking for an experienced scientist with a proven interest in metabolic pathways, preferably in plants. The scientist will implement new methodologies and unravel metabolic pathways leading to the production of (commercially) valuable plant compounds as well as capturing the value of this knowledge by producing such compounds in plants or microbial production hosts. You will acquire, initiate and maintain collaborative projects, through subsidy channels as well as via bi-lateral funding, with industries and/or other research organizations. You will complement a highly motivated, enthusiastic and skilled team of about six scientists and technicians to strengthen research and acquisition in this area and collaborate with University Departments within and outside Wageningen as well as with (international) industries.

This team is embedded in the cluster Applied Metabolic Systems, which is focused on gaining a better understanding at the molecular and genetic level of metabolic processes which lead to the huge biochemical diversity in plants, and the effect of plant metabolites on humans and animals. It houses state-of-the-art facilities, comprising LC/MS and GC/MS for metabolomics and proteomics, and a bionano-receptor platform. The Cluster Applied Metabolic Systems has a total of about 25 staff members, PhDs, Postdocs and guest-workers. It operates market-driven, both in (inter)national consortia as well as in bilateral partnerships with industry and has an excellent scientific track record and patent portfolio.

Explore the biochemical diversity of plants to meet the needs of society.
Applied Metabolic Systems is part of Bioscience, one of the business units of the Wageningen Research foundation of the Plant Sciences Group. Wageningen Research together with Wageningen University forms Wageningen University & Research. At Bioscience, we study at the molecular level the regulation of metabolic and developmental processes of plants to meet the needs of our growing society. We are developing tools that allow to tap on barely revealed genetic resources. Wageningen UR is an internationally renowned research institute in the fields of life sciences and sustainable production.

Qualifications

• a PhD degree;
• expertise in (at least several of) the areas of:
  • Metabolic engineering
  • Relationship between chemical structures and enzymatic conversions
  • Enzymology
  • Evolutionary genetics applied to metabolic pathways
  • Synthetic biology;
• a keen interest in translating scientific knowledge into applied research;
• excellent communication and networking skills;
• an open and professional working attitude;
• team player mentality with experience in working in a multidisciplinary team;
• excellent command of English, both written and spoken.

The position

A meaningful position with for a maximum of 36 hours per week initially for a period of one year with a possible extension to obtain a permanent position. A competitive salary, depending on your relevant experience scale 11 or 12 from a minimum of € 3.255,- to a maximum of € 5.748,- based on a 36 hours working week, in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement for the Wageningen Research.

In addition:

• 8% holiday allowance;
• a structural end-of-year bonus of 3%;
• excellent training opportunities and secondary employment conditions;
• excellent pension plan through ABP;
• 171 vacation hours (based on full time employment);
• a flexible model to put together part of your employment conditions yourself, such as a bicycle plan and the possibility to purchase extra and good supplementary leave schemes;
• flexible working hours and holidays can possibly be determined in consultation so that a good balance between work and private life is possible;
• a lively workplace where you can easily make contacts and where many activities take place on the Wageningen Campus. A place where education, research and business are represented.

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For more information about this function, please contact Dirk Bosch, Group leader Applied Metabolic Systems (telephone +31 317 480 933, e-mail: dirk.bosch@wur.nl).
For more information about the procedure, please contact vacaturemeldingen.psg@wur.nl.

This vacancy is open until January 20, 2020.
For this position you can only apply on line: http://www.wageningenur.nl/career

In accordance with the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) to which the CHIC project is committed, the overall objective of WP6 is to engage stakeholders in the innovation process in order to consider their viewpoints on the planned innovation from the very beginning of the project. The WP uses various measures to ensure stakeholder engagement, the most important of which are described below. However, it should be noted that for all these methods, the same basic rules apply, as described in the Strategy Document for Stakeholder Engagement, Communication and Transparency (STECT, available here).

A first measure to ensure stakeholder engagement in the CHIC project is establishing and engaging the Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG), led by EPSO, the European Plant Science Organisation. The initial SAG was invited to the first project meeting in February 2018. At this and the subsequent meeting in November 2018, the SAG made suggestions to make project activities more useful for farmers, industries and end-users. The ensuing discussions with the project partners helped to clarify how each of the participants could contribute to increasing the outcome and impact of CHIC.

In the meantime, the WP6 team continued to seek for additional SAG members, aiming at an SAG which is composed of 2-4 entities from each of the four subgroups representing industries, farming, academia and end-users.

The SAG already includes four industry representatives (EuroSeeds, FoodDrinkEurope, Suedzucker and Portugal Foods), two entities from farming (Association of Dutch chicory growers and CopaCogeca), 2 reseachers from academia (IGZ Grossbeeren, chairing the EPSO Working Group on Horticulture and INRA, chairing the EPSO Working Group on Agricultural technologies), and one from the end-user side (from the European Economic and Social Council).  The list of members can be found here.

New stakeholders invited include the Head of the Science Policy Programme of EMBO for academia, the Belgian farmer organisation ‘Boerenbond’, and the European Public Health Organisation (EUPHA) for end-users.

The SAG is invited to the next project meeting in March 2020 to further advice on the project and among other tasks, help preparing the stakeholder consultations for 2020 and 2021 (see below).

A second measure is the social scientific research into the factors that might have an impact—positive or negative—on the acceptability of the chicory plants and products developed within CHIC. This includes in-depth interviews with selected experts and stakeholders across the chicory value chain, a historical case study on the first attempts in the 1990s to carry out field tests of GM chicory in Europe, and various other steps. Based on this knowledge, a third important measure of stakeholder engagement in CHIC project are stakeholder consultations (SHCs). SHCs will take place at three different levels, each involving different groups of stakeholders. National SHCs will take place in each of the important chicory growing countries, i.e. in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, between May and July 2020. Focusing on business perspectives, they will bring together actors from across the value chain. The National SHCs will be followed by a Regional SHC, scheduled for autumn 2020. This regional consultation will focus on the dimension of risk. It will therefore invite stakeholders from various interest groups and NGOs (including environmental and consumer organizations) as well as agencies concerned with the regulation of GE plants. Finally, two consecutive EU-level SHCs will bring together participants of the previous consultation rounds, and also involve other perspectives as well as EU-level stakeholder representatives.

Root chicory is grown for inulin, but it also produces a number of compounds in its latex. These compounds belong to the class of terpenes and the most abundant of these are sesquiterpene lactones (STLs), which have a potential as antimicrobial and anticancer bioactives. However these compounds may interfere with the extraction of inulin. Therefore in CHIC we have the following twofold objectives:

1. To understand how these terpenes accumulate in the latex, how laticifers (the specialized cells that accumulate latex) develop and characterize the bioactivity of compounds that are present in the latex. With this knowledge at hand, chicory could be developed as a biofactory for the production of valuable sesquiterpene lactones. To reduce the impact of latex in the extraction of inulin, we aim to decrease the number of laticifer cells in the tap root.
2. Our data shows that the early steps of STLs biosynthesis take place outside of the laticifer cells and STLs accumulate inside of laticifers by transportation mediated process. Based on this information, candidate genes for the development of laticifers and biosynthesis of STLs have been selected. Preliminary bioactivity assays indicate the presence of anti-biofilm activities.

Furthermore, candidate genes involved in the accumulation of costunolide and parthenolide have been identified to generate modified plants with higher amount of parthenolide, an anticancer compound.