Review: Successes from the past decade of improving photosynthesis

Many factors contribute to global hunger, but progress in many sensible directions such as lowering waste and improving distribution has been negligible; furthermore, the ever growing challenges of climate change continue to hinder food production. Photosynthesis is a critical yet inefficient process for plant growth that is largely conserved across important crops, so provides an excellent target for increasing production. This excellent review by Long et al. superbly lays out the different approaches being explored and their successes. The first part of the review discusses efforts to improve the efficiency with which Rubisco fixes carbon. These include carbon-concentrating mechanisms such as C4 pathways or pyrenoids as well as strategies to alter the catalytic specificity of Rubisco directly or enhance the downstream pathways. Additional approaches are discussed that can improve light harvesting, such as through altering leaf canopy architecture or fine-tuning non-photochemical quenching. An interesting thread throughout this review is a discussion of how new research tools and techniques are instrumental to such efforts, seamlessly blending basic and applied research. (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) Cell 10.1016/j.cell.2025.10.033.