By Heather Hobbs


BRINGING YOU THE LATEST NEWS & EVENTS FROM THE SCIENCE INDUSTRY


Farmers could Reap Benefits from Predictive AI


AI that can predict a crops shipment window three times earlier than previously possible has been developed by Agrimetrics, one of four Agri-Tech centres backed by the UK Gov and Microsoft and one of 58 core partners of EIT Food, Europe’s leading food innovation initiative. The first proof-of-concept promises to save one leading farming business >£6m p/a, equivalent to 15% increase in gross profit.


Overseas crops are grown to a specified shipment window, providing retailers with a constant supply of fresh produce; if windows are missed, growers are generally responsible for making up the shortfall. Purchasing produce from a third-party supplier or airfreight are the most common ways to do this, but both are expensive. Costs for one of the UK’s leading food and farming business run to £120k per week – just for sweetcorn.


These costs can be reduced substantially if a grower knows in good time that a shipment will be missed. The more time the grower has to source and negotiate alternatives, the lower the


cost will be.


“This was the catalyst for creating our Harvest Timing Prediction AI,” explained Anna Woodley, Head of Sales at Agrimetrics. “We realised that increasing the notice period by even a couple of weeks would result in huge savings. To put this in perspective, one customer estimates savings of more than £6 million per year. That’s equivalent to a 15% increase in gross profit.


Agrimetrics are currently predicting the correct shipment window for sweetcorn crops with up to 93% accuracy, which can be done 4 weeks in advance. They claim that accuracy and timeframes can be increased given access to more data.


“Given the right data, we can improve the accuracy and widen the applications of our AI to cover more fields, more supply chains, more crops,” concluded Anna.


52485pr@reply-direct.com UKRI Announces new Chief Executive Officer


UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the national funding agency investing in science and research in the UK, has appointed Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser DBE FRS, Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, as the its Chief Executive Officer.


Having driven many initiatives to support an open and collaborative research culture, Professor Leyser has been actively engaged in science policy for a long time. Currently Chair of the Royal Society’s Science Policy Expert Advisory Committee, she serves on the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology and as Associate Director, was integral to the establishment of the Sainsbury Laboratory (SLUC), in 2011.


Her own research has resulted in major advances in our knowledge of plant development and includes pioneering work in studying hormonal control of shoot branching through interdisciplinary approaches. In 2017 Professor Leyser was appointed Dame


Ottoline Leyser


Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to plant science, science in society and equality and diversity in science. She has also been awarded the Society of Experimental Biology’s President’s Medal (2000), the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award (2007), the International Plant Growth Substance Association’s Silver Medal (2010), the UK Genetics Society Medal (2016), the EMBO Women in Science Award (2017) and the 2020 Waddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology.


“UKRI has a unique opportunity to make a profound contribution to tackling the many challenges facing the world. In my career, I have seen the power of genuinely collaborative cultures to catalyse the transformative thinking needed to create effective solutions. I look forward to working with the UKRI team to ensure that the UK’s superb research and innovation system continues to work for everyone, by pioneering new partnerships, developing innovative funding models and strengthening international collaboration,” said Professor Leyser.


SLUC Associate Director Professor Henrik Jönsson was selected to take over leadership of the Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge.


52484pr@reply-direct.com Scientists Work towards Future Pandemic Control


Plymouth University spin-out The Vaccine Group (TVG), are working on a coronavirus vaccine designed to prevent outbreaks similar to the current COVID-19 pandemic, by preventing infections jumping from animals to humans.


Commercialising the work of Dr Michael Jarvis, Associate Professor (Reader) in Virology and Immunology in the University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, TVG has secured more than £9 million in funding to progress a range of vaccines based on benign forms of herpesviruses, which are found in all animals including humans.


Dr Jarvis said: “As COVID-19 has shown, the spillover of disease from animals to humans can have a very high social, economic and commercial cost globally. Naturally, there has been a swift move into funding the development of human


vaccines and therapeutics, but to date we are not aware of any approaches to eliminate COVID-19 in the animal population to prevent future outbreaks or re-emergence of the disease. The animal species involved in emergence of COVID-19 remain unclear. We believe that such a vaccine tool may be vital for control of COVID-19 as well as other emerging coronaviruses. We have therefore started work on a vaccine and will be partnering with the Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute and Kansas State University, with whom we already have close links.”


“By developing vaccines for animals, rather than solely for humans, you are potentially tackling any future outbreaks at source. Development of this particular vaccine has just been started and it is expected to be in animal studies before the


end of the year. Although this will be too late for the current outbreak, the diversity of animal reservoirs and genetic variability of COVID-19 and related coronaviruses mean it could give rise to future pandemics. An animal vaccine could help prevent this from happening, although we still don’t know the animal species involved in the spillover of the current COVID-19 into humans,” added Dr Jarvis.


TVG is supported by the University’s commercialisation partner, Frontier IP, and earlier this year the company completed a £680,000 equity fund raise that valued TVG at £9.5 million. The funds are being used directly to accelerate technology development.


52483pr@reply-direct.com Anna Woodley


Population Study will Help Inform Future Infection


Response Strategies A government study to track coronavirus (COVID-19) in the general population, which is supported by the University of Oxford, is in the process of contacting 20,000 households across England to understand levels of immunity; researchers hope to reach up to 300,000 people within the next 12 months.


With participants forming a representative sample of the entire UK population by age and geography, the results will help scientists and the government in the ongoing response to the coronavirus outbreak.


Professor Sarah Walker of University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine said, “This is one of the largest and most important studies underway into the COVID-19 virus and will transform our understanding of the infection. The University of Oxford is delighted to be the study sponsor.” Led by the Department for Health and Social Care and the Office for National Statistics, the study draws on the world-leading scientific expertise of the University of Oxford and is backed by the testing capabilities of data science company IQVIA UK and the National Biosample Centre in Milton Keynes.


The study will add to the population data already being collected through the national surveillance programme operated by Public Health England, which has been enhanced since the end of February.


Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “These results will help us better understand the spread of the virus to date, predict the future trajectory and inform future action we take, including crucially the development of ground-breaking new tests and treatments.”


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