The Cambridge-India Network in Translational Nitrogen (CINTRIN) is a collaborative virtual centre between the UK and India. CINTRIN will exploit and translate developmental biology research into innovation in nitrogen use by farmers.
It will deliver a translational pipeline to produce new cereal varieties for optimized nitrogen use in agriculture. The Centre will provide extensive training in developmental research and translation, and generate new knowledge to optimise biological Nitrogen use for sustainable intensification.
The centre is led by NIAB in the UK and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India. It brings together the Department of Plant Sciences and the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, ADAS, the Punjab Agricultural University, the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) and agri-IT and bio-technology specialists KisanHub.
The annual CINTRIN workshops, the academic exchanges and training in India and in the UK, will be core to address the challenges posed by N use. The India-UK CINTRIN partnership represents a powerful alliance of academia, research institutes and business, and provides a timely demonstration of the synergy that arises when end-to-end approaches address specific targets for reducing the use of agricultural nitrogen by exploiting plant genetics.
CINTRIN is one of the four new Virtual Joint Centres in Agricultural Nitrogen delivered in partnership by BBSRC, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Department of Biotechnology India (DBT).
The funds will support collaboration between UK and Indian scientists which will help meet the challenge of sustainably producing enough food for a growing population whilst reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.