CSIRO research scientist Dr Xiaoqing Li was today announced as the CRDC-supported ABARES Science and Innovation Award winner for 2022, with a project that could help trace Australian cotton fibres.
Xiaoqing will be presented with her award at the ABARES Outlook virtual conference tomorrow, with CRDC Executive Director Ian Taylor in attendance.
Xiaoqing is a member of the CSIRO Cotton Fibre Quality team and her winning research project recognises that traceability of cotton fibres is a powerful tool to meet the growing product assurance expectations of consumers and global supply chains.
Together with her colleagues, Xiaoqing recently developed a genetically engineered cotton germplasm, which produces a protein that does not exist naturally in cotton fibres. Her Science and Innovation Awards project will investigate the presence and stability of this introduced foreign protein in cotton for the first time, and whether it could be used to develop a way of tracing cotton back to its original source.
"If this protein is stable and can be detected, after the fibre matures, possibly we can trace it from the beginning to the end of the life of the fibre," she says.
Now Canberra based, Xiaoqing grew up in China and studied in the UK before moving to Australia as a research scientist.
She says customers are seeking more sustainable products, particularly in the textile industry. That includes materials grown in a sustainable way and manufactured under fair labour conditions.
"Unfortunately, without good traceability, it's hard to tell where the material comes from," Xiaoqing says.
"So, traceability is a very good tool to make this happen, to improve the whole supply chain sustainability."
Xiaoqing says existing traceability techniques typically rely on either added pigments, which need extra processing steps, or written records, which can lack transparency. She says her project fills a gap in the science.
"We haven't seen any plant-based technology being developed in this area," she says, "so if this can happen, it really can make a leap forward."
As the recipient of this year's award, Xiaoqing will receive a CRDC grant to undertake this novel research.
