According to a statement from the university, Dr. Alex Johnson has been awarded funds to work with the Bill Gates-funded HarvestPlus Challenge program. His research looks to increase the iron content in rice and other grains.
About 30 percent of the world's population, about two billion people, have an iron deficiency. These deficiencies can cause anemia, poor mental development, fertility problems and a depressed immune system.
Dr. Johnson works at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics at the Waite Campus and will research improving the delivery of iron from the leaf to the seed as part of his goal of increasing iron content in cereal foods.
"Iron content is quite low in cereal grains because although iron is present in a plant's leaves, very little of that iron is transported to the seed, which is the part that is consumed by humans," Dr. Johnson said in the statement. "We know of several proteins that move iron around in a plant so it is a matter of increasing the flow of iron into a seed tissue called endosperm, which survives the milling and polishing process."
The two most widely eaten cereals in developing countries-rice and wheat-deliver only a small amount of iron to the developing grain, depositing the mineral mostly in the outer layers, which are generally removed in the milling process.
