Chloroplasts—the “light power plants” of plant cells—are increasingly the focus of synthetic biology. These organelles house the photosynthetic apparatus and host several metabolic pathways that are of great interest for engineering new traits. Gene insertion into chloroplasts is precise and carries a lower risk of transgene escape.

Despite this potential, chloroplast biotechnology remains in its infancy because standardized, scalable methods for rapid testing of diverse genetic parts have been missing. A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg has now presented a micro‑algal platform that allows automated, fast, and large‑scale testing of chloroplast genetic modifications.

The study is published in the journal Nature Plants.