Metabolic engineering of diterpene synthesis in plants

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Summary of the ProposalStevia is a plant species native to the Paraguay that produces a high intensity sweetener in its leaf tissue.  This natural product can be up to 300 times sweeter than sugar and is of considerable interest to a society trying to reduce carbohydrate intake and at the same time shift towards more  natural.  The same tools used to sequence the human genome were successfully applied to Stevia in a effort to  understand the genetic and biochemical basis of sweetener production.  Now, through genetic enhancement technologies, those discoveries are to be used to bring the sweet compounds to other foods and for the production of medicines.