Dr Britta Förster is a Research Fellow at The Australian National University, working in the ARC Centre of Excellence for translational Photosynthesis. The Centre is a collaboration of plant molecular biologists, physiologists and crop modelling experts who have joined forces to generate more productive crop plants for securing food supply of a growing global population in the near future.
Her research focuses on the regulation of cyanobacterial bicarbonate uptake systems (transporters), which are part of the CO2 concentrating mechanism of cyanobacteria, and their introduction into higher plant chloroplasts. This aims to increase the efficiency of carbon dioxide fixation into carbohydrates to promote plant growth and productivity.
Dr Förster is an expert in photosynthesis, including very specialised physiological techniques such as chlorophyll fluorescence, gas exchange using membrane inlet mass spectrometry, and an array of techniques in molecular biology and biochemistry. In addition, she has worked for many years on light stress responses in algae using Chlamydomonas as a model organism.