My research aims to improve the yield, quality and health impact of wheat using multidisciplinary approaches. My primary expertise is starch biochemistry and genetics.

Previously, I worked on starch quality, mainly in cereal crops, in the John Innes Centre, Norwich and at NIAB, Cambridge.

Key publications

Transfer of a starch phenotype from wild wheat to bread wheat by deletion of a locus controlling B-type starch granule content, Tansy Chia, Nikolai M Adamski, Benedetta Saccomanno, Andy Greenland, Alastair Nash, Cristobal Uauy, Kay Trafford, Journal of Experimental Botany, doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erx349

TRA1: a locus responsible for controlling Agrobacterium-mediated transformability in barley
Beata Orman-Ligeza, Wendy Harwood, Pete E. Hedley, Alison Hinchcliffe, Malcolm Macaulay, Cristobal Uauy, Kay Trafford. Frontiers in Plant Science doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00355

LYS3 encodes a prolamin-box-binding transcription factor that controls embryo growth in barley and wheat. Beata Orman-Ligeza, Philippa Borrill, Tansy Chia, Marcella Chirico, Jaroslav Doležel, Sinead Drea, Miroslava Karafiátová, Nicole Schatlowski, Charles U. Solomon, Burkhard Steuernagel, Brande B. H. Wulff, Cristobal Uauy, Kay Trafford. Journal of Cereal Science doi: 10.1016/j.jcs.2020.102965

Grain development in Brachypodium and other grasses: possible interactions between cell expansion, starch deposition, and cell-wall synthesis, Kay Trafford, Pauline Haleux, Marilyn Henderson, Mary Parker, Neil J. Shirley, Matthew R. Tucker, Geoffrey B. Fincher, Rachel A. Burton, Journal of Experimental Botany, doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ert292

Granule-bound starch synthase I in isolated starch granules elongates malto-oligosaccharides processively. Kay DENYER, Darren WAITE, Saddik MOTAWIA, Birger Lindberg MØLLER, Alison M. SMITH; Biochem J. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/bj3400183