Tracing a path through photosynthesis to food security
The energy that plants capture from sunlight through photosynthesis provides the source of nearly all of humanity’s food. Yet the process of photosynthesis has inefficiencies that limit crop productivity, especially in a rapidly changing world. A new review by University of Illinois scientists and collaborators reflects on how improving photosynthesis can bring us closer to food security.
The review, which was published in Cell, was coauthored by crop sciences professors Stephen Long* and Lisa Ainsworth and plant biology professor Amy Marshall-Colon.* With chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Diwakar Shukla and colleagues at eight partner institutions, they evaluated biological strategies to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight to sugar in crop plants.
A plant that is able to capture more sunlight can produce a greater amount of food or fuel. In a review written ten years ago, Long, Marshall-Colon, and Chinese Academy of Sciences principle investigator Xin-Guang Zhu described the promise of focusing on photosynthesis to develop higher-yield crop plants and identified potential pathways to improvement. The present review examines the progress made on each and re-emphasizes the value of this research approach.
"The pace at which we have gained knowledge over the last decade has been incredible," Ainsworth said. "As we look at all of the challenges surrounding agriculture . . . photosynthesis has the potential to address them. The pace of research progress has accelerated over the last decade and we are poised to have exponential growth in understanding of photosynthesis in the coming decade."
Ainsworth directs Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency, an international project focusing on this area of research; Long, Marshall-Colon, Shukla, and several other coauthors are RIPE investigators. RIPE is supported by Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One).
Read more from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.
*Long and Marshall-Colon passed away in 2025.