Towards eradication of hidden hunger by metabolic engineering of rice: the story of folate, iron and provitamin A.

More than one-third of the global population has a lack of at least one micronutrient. Iron, vitamin A and vitamin B9 (folate) deficiencies are amongst the most common and severe. Micronutrient malnutrition, or hidden hunger, leads to severe health defects ranging from blindness and spina-bifida to death. The United Nations has made eradication of hidden hunger, and hunger in general, the 2nd Sustainable Development Goal, indicating the urgency of the problem. Rice is largely consumed in countries where hidden hunger is most severe like India, Mozambique and Bangladesh. The crop provides a fair amount of calories but lacks in micronutrients such as folate. Breakthrough research was conducted several years ago in the lab of Prof. D. Van Der Straeten, where rice lines where generated with 150-fold increase in folate. This was done by genetically improving these lines. Other labs have achieved enhancement of provitamin A, iron and zinc, but each time as a separate micronutrient. During this PhD project we will try to create a rice line in which all these micronutrients are combined. This has never been successfully achieved before, and would assist in the fight to eradicate hidden hunger. Generation of this multi-biofortified rice will further lead to new fundamental insights on the role of these micronutrients in plants. This knowledge will be vital for future biofortification approaches and strengthen the field of plant biology.