Dr Katie Moore
EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Katie is using the NanoSIMS to investigate the localisation of important trace and macro-elements in plants at the sub-cellular scale. These projects are in collaboration with Rothamsted Research, Oxford Brookes University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences and the Universities of South Australia and Melbourne. Katie is interested in use of the NanoSIMS and complementary techniques to investigate elemental distributions in plants.
She has also been using the NanoSIMS on a wide range of other materials including zirconium alloys, nickel alloys and steels.
Follow me on Academia.edu 
Research Projects:
Arsenic in rice:
Irrigation of rice paddies in South-East Asia with arsenic contaminated water has resulted in rice containing elevated levels of arsenic, a carcinogenic and toxic element. Knowledge of where the As is located will help to understand how the As is transported to the grain and how milling can help reduce the arsenic concentration.
Arsenic in rice roots and nodes:
In order to be able to understand how arsenic is deposited into the rice grain it is important to understand how arsenic is taken up by the plant through the roots and the stem. Different arsenic treatments, iron plaques and the effect of different rice cultivars, wild-types and mutants, are being investigated to determine the mechanisms of uptake through the roots and the nodes.
Wheat grain development and protein distribution:
Wheat grain storage proteins are of immense importance in food processing as they form a viscoelastic network in dough trapping the carbon dioxide bubbles formed during sugar fermentation causing the dough to rise when baked. These proteins are deposited in the starchy endosperm region of the grain, however, the starchy endosperm is not a homogenous tissue, with clear gradients in the protein content and composition. These gradients have implications for grain processing as they may allow the production of flour fractions with specific compositions and processing properties. However, they are also of fundamental interest in relation to understanding the control of endosperm development. Wheat plants have been isotopically spiked with 15N to infer mechanisms of protein synthesis and the distribution of the 15N has been mapped with the NanoSIMS.
Additionally Katie has been working on localising important trace elements such as selenium and iron in wheat and rice grains as well as understanding the localisation of toxic elements such as aluminium.
Selected Publications:
Trends in Plant Science (2014) In Press
*Joint first authors
New Phytologist 201(1) (2014) 104-105
Journal of Nuclear Materials 443(1-3) (2013) 436-443
K. L. Moore, C. R. Hawes, S. P. McGrath, F.-J. Zhao, SIMS XVIII conference proceedings, Surface and Interface Analysis, 45, (2013), 309-311
K.L. Moore, E. Lombi, F.-J. Zhao, C.R.M. Grovenor, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry 402(10) (2012), P. 3263-3273
G. van Tendeloo, D. van Dyck, S. J. Pennycook (editors). 2012 Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 709-744.
K.L. Moore, F.-J. Zhao, C.S. Gritsch, P. Tosi, M.J. Hawkesford, S.P. McGrath, P.R. Shewry, C.R.M. Grovenor, Journal of Cereal Science 55(2) (2012), P. 183-187
K.L. Moore, M. Schröder, Zhong-Chang Wu, B.G.H. Martin, C. Hawes, S.P. McGrath, M.G. Hawkesford, Jian Feng Ma, F.-J.Zhao, C.R.M. Grovenor, Plant Physiology 157 (2011) P.498-508
K.L. Moore, M. Schröder, E. Lombi, F.-J.Zhao, S.P. McGrath, M.G. Hawkesford, P.R. Shewry, C.R.M. Grovenor, New Phytologist 185 (2010) P.434-445
Previous page: Previous Group Members
Next page: Research Projects