Claire Mauss

GFI Fellow - Class of 2021

Graduate student, botany and plant sciences
UC Riverside

DESCRIPTION

2021-22 GFI student fellow

While much of crop science to date has focused on improving crops for traditional agriculture, Claire’s research looks to engineer crops for the sustainable agricultural systems we will need in the future. Her project seeks to optimize tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) for controlled environment agriculture (CEA). CEA is currently limited by highly restrictive growth parameters. She hopes to reduce the non-edible portions of tomato, creating a dwarf plant suitable for commercial CEA production. Claire’s research builds on work done by the University of California, Riverside Plant Transformation Research Center, which recently engineered dwarf cherry tomato plants, referred to as Small Plants for Agriculture in Controlled Environments or SPACE tomatoes. Using CRISPR/Cas9 multiplexing technology to simultaneously edit multiple genes relating to plant architecture and growth hormones, she will recreate the SPACE phenotype in a larger, globe tomato variety.