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A new project to develop cereals resistant to drought

Improving plant resistance to drought is the main goal of a project selected by the European Research Council (ERC) in the Consolidator Grants and led by the Center of Research in Agrigenomics (CRAG). It is aimed at improving crops to handle climatic change.
Obtaining crops resistant to drought is the goal of this project. Recently, a team led by the CSIC researcher Ana Caño-Delgado found out that some modifications in the vegetal steroids in plants could improve drought resistance.

Now, Ana Caño-Delgado and colleagues start the new project Improving Drought Resistance in Crops and Arabidopsis, which has been selected by the ERC in the last calling Consolidator Grants. It will be funded with 2 million euros for the next five years.

“The goal is to obtain cereals resistant to drought”, says Ana Caño-Delgado, at the Center of Research in Agrigenomics (CRAG), which is a consortium of the CSIC, the IRTA, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the University of Barcelona (UB).

For this scientist, plants can be “not only a biotechnological answer to social problems such as hunger, but also a biological model for studying the development processes at a basic level”.

ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to back up researchers, with 7-12 years of experience,  who want to establish their research teams and continue developing a successful career in Europe.