Abstract: Plants lie at the heart of many potential solutions to the climate crisis. Yet, it can take years to breed plants with new, useful features. Synthetic biology could expedite the development of diverse climate-resilient crops through precise manipulation of gene expression across cell types and environments. This level of control is essential for improving complex traits, like yield and resilience, which are often determined by cell- and developmental stage-specific gene activities. We are developing synthetic genetic circuit tools to enable precise gene expression control across cell types and tissues in plants. These genetic circuits use logical operations to combine the activity of tissue specific promoters and create new patterns of gene. We are applying genetic circuits to engineer the size and shape of plant roots to better understand their contribution to environmental stress tolerance. A better understanding of the root features that are important for environmental stress tolerance should enable targeted breeding and biotechnological interventions that improve agricultural sustainability.

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Jennifer Brophy, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.