Nupur Tailor realised her passion for crop sciences while pursuing her Master’s degree in plant biology (2020-2022) from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden). During her final year thesis at Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands), she particularly gained interest in small grain cereal crops such as barley and wheat.
Later in 2022, Nupur was awarded a Bayer Foundation Research Fellowship to conduct short-term research at IPK Gatersleben (Germany), where Nupur was investigating key gene players involved in barley plant architecture using molecular-genetic approaches. She realised the agronomical and economic importance of cereal crops and wanted to work to improve the yield and quality of cereals in her future research.
Currently, in her PhD project, Nupur is looking at the beta-glucan levels in different barley germplasm with the aim of increasing the levels in the already established spring barley cultivars in the UK using multi-disciplinary approaches including crop management, trait introgression, and gene editing. Beta-glucans are a non-starch polysaccharide found in the cell walls of cereal grains that confer significant benefits like actively lowering blood cholesterol levels, preventing hypertension, slowing glucose release in the blood, and reducing the risk of obesity. It is an important trait for establishing barley as a food crop in the nation.
Nupur is excited to work with TMAF on this project, as she believes she will be able to contribute not only to the advancement of science and research but also yield results that would be directly beneficial to farmers and plant breeders.
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