To reflect on the last year, we compiled a list of the Top 5 Social Media posts of 2023 and counted them down during the final week of the year. If you missed one, don’t worry, you’ll find them all below!

#5 – RIPE featured by BBC Business
In September of 2023, BBC Business wrote about RIPE’s work to improve photosynthesis in their article “The turbo-charged plants that could boost farm output.” Director Steve Long was interviewed about the strategies RIPE is using and where we’ve seen increases in yield.

 

#4 – Rubisco Regulation Review
Despite being up for less time, Elizabete Carmo-Silva’s review summarizing decades of Rubisco regulation research was our fourth most popular social media post! In early December the review as published in New Phytologist and shared alongside a feature story about the work. This review was important to Carmo-Silva professionally and personally, as her coauthors are, like her, native Portuguese speakers.

 

#3 – Niyogi Lab CRISPR Work
In February, the Innovative Genomics Institute wrote a feature, Improving Photosynthesis to Fight Climate Change, on the CRISPR work being done in RIPE principal investigator Kris Niyogi’s lab. The article explained how photosynthesis works, why the Niyogi lab is focusing on it, and how it can be a strategy to help mitigate climate change. The Niyogi lab’s approach to improving photosynthesis uses CRISPR technology to increase the success, speed, and precision of the genetic editing process.

 

#2 – RIPE Shortlisted for THE Award
An incredible honor for RIPE in 2023 was being shortlisted for the Times Higher Education (THE) Award for International Collaboration of the Year with our partner institution, the University of Essex. When the news was first announced, the University of Essex published International Collaboration of the Year: RIPE, which was the second most popular social media post on our channels. Essex also later published a short video about RIPE featuring principal investigator Christine Raines, and Raines also published a reflection piece on the keys to long-term international research projects for the Times Higher Education website.

 

#1 – Steve Long TED Talk
RIPE Director Steve Long’s TED Talk made the news multiple times, when it was first announced that he would be speaking at TED2023 – POSSIBILITY in Vancouver this past April and, when the long-awaited recording of his talk came out at the end of November. It was definitely our most talked-about piece of news in 2023! If you haven’t seen it, check out “Can we hack photosynthesis to feed the world?” on the TED website. It currently has more than 418,000 views!