A Place in the Sun: LED arrays that mimic natural spectral transitions

Summary

Experimental protocols for growth of plants typically use square-wave white light regimes which do not reflect the natural diurnal light patterns. Our aim is to build an LED lighting array system and write software that can enable researchers to explore a range of physiological responses under more natural dawn and dusk lighting transitions. We plan to use this equipment to compare the phase and amplitude of clock gene expression (via expression luciferase image analysis) of plants grown under our simulated natural lighting conditions and a standard square wave light regime

The Team

Susan Duncan – Post Doc, Hall Group, Earlham Institute, Norwich
Susan will manage the project and provide circadian imaging expertise.

Hannah Rees – PhD Student, Hall Group, Earlham Institute, Norwich
Hannah will work with Susan to set up the prototype systems at EI. She has experience of micro- manager coding and luciferase imaging.

Mark Greenwood – PhD Student, Locke Group, Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge
Mark will help Susan and Hannah with scripting. He has programming and luciferase imaging expertise.

James Locke – PI, Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge
James will provide programming expertise and supervisory support.

Anthony Hall – PI, Earlham Institute, Norwich
Anthony will provide hardware/coding/imaging expertise and supervisory support.