Innovation: Germ of an idea

Zeneca has signed an agreement with the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, to market their work on genetically engineered resistance to fungal diseases in plants. The two have been working together since 1989 on a project that found that certain plants, such as radishes, protect their seeds from fungal attack by producing anti-fungal proteins.

The joint project has located the genetic code for the production of these proteins and is working to introduce them into commercially important plants such as oilseed rape.