We hope to understand what structural features make the Rubisco from C₄ plants faster and integrate this feature into the slower Rubisco in C₃ plants

Rubisco from C₃ and C₄ plants have contrasting catalytic properties that reflect the enzyme’s respective operating environment. For C₄ Rubisco, the general improvements in their CO₂-fixation rates have generally come at the expense of a lower CO₂ affinity. With unfolding climate change, the operating environments of many C₃ crops are looking increasingly similar to those favouring C₄ plants (hot, dry and CO₂-enriched). This raises the possibility that the 'faster' Rubisco from C₄ plants could enhance the productivity and efficiency of C₃ crops, particularly if they have been engineered with additional chemistry to saturate CO₂ near Rubisco and thus avoid the limitations of Rubiscos wasteful oxygenase activity.

Using recent technological breakthroughs in Rubisco engineering in the model plant tobacco, a variety of projects are available to experimentally pin-point evolutionary switches in C₄ Rubiscos that enhance catalytic turnover rate. The goal is to integrate these structural switches into the Rubisco from C₃ plants to accelerate their CO₂-fixation rate and examine how this impacts photosynthesis and plant growth.