About Open Plant
Scientists have been engineering plants since the 1970s for their unique ability to assemble elaborate molecules. Genspace members join an international consortium borne out of the UK’s Open Plant Research Centre to use the common liverwort M. polymorpha to develop open source tools and methods for DIY plant synthetic biology.
M. polymorpha is ideal for bioengineering. Small and fast-growing, it’s a perfect model system for carrying out quick and easy experiments. Since 2018, Open Plant has been focused on expressing insulin in M. polymorpha. They began with the basics: cloning and propagating liverwort cultures with an eye for developing tools and practices for any DIY biologist to “domesticate” this organism.
Next, they experimented with and optimized transformation procedures to turn M. polymorpha red–and then to express insulin. In early 2025, Open Plant experienced a major breakthrough: confirming that the gene for a synthetic version of human insulin–glargine–is present in their transformed liverwort plants.
Read on for a play-by-play of Genspace’s Open Plant journey.
At the bottom of this page, meet all of the brilliant community scientists who brought this research to life.
2018 - Open Plant is Founded
After Jenny Molon of the UK’s Open Plant Research Centre gave a talk at Genspace, Tina Lai and Will Shindel launch Genspace’s very first community project. Basing the project on Open Plant’s work on Marchantia polymorpha as a model organism–the group joins the global open Marchantia community and begins exploring plant-based insulin production.
2019 - Building the First Plant Incubators
Growing Marchantia reliably and without contamination proves trickier than expected, so team members begin engineering DIY plant incubators using styrofoam coolers, fans, and grow lights. After testing different types of growth media and antibiotic resistance markers, the team successfully cultivates wild-type Marchantia in tissue culture boxes.
2020 - First Successful Transformation
After many trial-and-error attempts, the team successfully transforms Marchantia gemmae using Agrobacterium (a bacterial vector for horizontal gene transfer in plants) carrying fluorescent protein genes. This milestone proves that their methods work, paving the way for an Agrobacterium-based synthetic construct containing insulin-producing genes.
2020 - Open Plant at Home
When the lab closes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers scramble to store their transformed plants in refrigerators for long-term preservation. Meanwhile, back at home, team members continue to build incubators, meeting via Zoom and keeping the project alive during lockdown.
The famous “Piano Bench” incubator at home during the pandemic lab closure, so named for its home on a… piano bench.
Results of the cooling experiment. We tested the effectiveness of the cooling unit we installed in the Piano Bench incubator.
2021 - Advancing the Genetic Toolkit
In order to begin approaching insulin production in Marchantia, the team receives insulin plasmids from Baltimore Underground Science Space’s Open Insulin Project.
To refine their approach, the team tests new molecular cloning techniques and successfully adds the Ef1a promoter to a RUBY reporter vector. RUBY is a synthetic gene that encodes the enzymes for synthesizing betalain, a vivid red pigment responsible for the color of beets. When included as a reporter in plant synthetic constructs for other genes, successful transformation can be visualized when plants turn red.
2022 - A Major Win: Transforming Marchantia Spores
With help from Dr. Dave Jackson’s lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the team uses Agrobacterium carrying the RUBY reporter gene and a new promoter to successfully transform Marchantia spores, producing striking purple plants. However, attempts to repeat this success fail due to low germination rates and (ongoing) contamination issues.
Midiprep of RUBY vector for Gibson assembly
Positive colony PCR showing addition of EF1a promoter into RUBY vector
2023-2024: Contamination & Other Challenges
Again and again transformation attempts with gemmae fail, leading the team to rethink their strategy. They begin molecular cloning work to insert the insulin sequence into a new plasmid with an improved promoter, recommended by Marchantia expert and Open Plant UK’s founder Dr. Jim Haseloff.
Lab contamination halts progress for months, derailing attempts to culture spores on plates. Once resolved, the team pivots to a new transformation method—thallus transformation. Finally, after many trials and tribulations, they achieve 10 successful transformants!
2025 & Beyond - Transformation Success
After years of troubleshooting and small but mighty wins, the team confirms that the insulin gene has successfully integrated into Marchantia. This marks a major breakthrough in their goal of using M. polymorpha as a platform for producing human insulin.
With a working transformation protocol in place, the team has turned its focus to measuring and optimizing insulin expression.
Success! We detect the insulin sequence in our assembled plasmid after PCR amplification!
Transformants growing on selection plates. The media contains hygromycin which is toxic to untransformed plants. They have died and turned brown while the transformed plants are growing.
Lanes 2, 3 and 4 were supposed to be clear. This means our transformants are contaminated with plasmid from the Agrobacterium used for the transformation. We need to be sure that the insulin sequence is in the Marchantia genomic DNA. So we cultured a new generation of transgenic plants from the gemmae of the transformants.
Lane 6 is supposed to be the negative control! What happened?
The final victory! All lanes except 7 are supposed to be clear. That means no plasmid from the Agrobacterium is present.