John Innes Centre

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John Innes Centre
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The John Innes Centre (JIC)
Former name
  • The John Innes Horticultural Institute (JIHI) (1910-1960)
  • The John Innes Institute (JII) (1960-1994)
Motto Unlocking Nature's Diversity
Established1909;114 years ago (1909)
Field of research
Director Graham Moore
Staff 389 [1]
Location Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
52°37′20″N1°13′18″E / 52.62219189202393°N 1.22169524681226°E / 52.62219189202393; 1.22169524681226
Affiliations
Website jic.ac.uk

The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity (No 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the European Research Council (ERC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is a member of the Norwich Research Park. [2] [3] In 2017, the John Innes Centre was awarded a gold Athena SWAN Charter award for equality in the workplace. [4]

Contents

History

The John Innes Horticultural Institution [5] was founded in 1910 at Merton Park, Surrey (now London Borough of Merton), with funds bequeathed by John Innes, a merchant and philanthropist. The Institution occupied Innes's former estate at Merton Park, Surrey until 1945 when it moved to Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire. It moved to its present site in 1967. [6]

In 1910, William Bateson became the first director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution and moved with his family to Merton Park.

John Innes compost was developed by the institution in the 1930s, who donated the recipe to the "Dig for Victory" war effort. The John Innes Centre has never sold John Innes compost.

During the 1980s, the administration of the John Innes Institute was combined with that of the Plant Breeding Institute [7] [8] [9] [10] (formerly at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire) and the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory. In 1994, following the relocation of the operations of other two organisations to the Norwich site, the three were merged as the John Innes Centre. [6]

As of 2011 the institute was divided into six departments: Biological Chemistry, Cell & Developmental Biology, Computational & Systems Biology, Crop Genetics, Metabolic Biology and Molecular Microbiology. [11]

The John Innes Centre has a tradition of training PhD students and post-docs. PhD degrees obtained via the John Innes Centre are awarded by the University of East Anglia. The John Innes Centre has a contingent of postdoctoral researchers, many of whom are recruited onto the institute's Post-doctoral Training Fellowship programme. The John Innes Centre also sponsors seminars and lectures, including the Bateson Lecture, Biffen Lecture, Chatt Lecture, Darlington Lecture and Haldane Lecture. [12]

Research

The research at the John Innes Centre is divided into 4 Institute Strategic Programs (ISPs) funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). [13] These ISPs, which combine the research of multiple groups to address a greater aim, were, from 2017 to 2023 as follows:

Affiliations

The John Innes Centre co-located with The Sainsbury Laboratory (Norwich), [14] an institute focused studying plant disease. The Sainsbury Laboratory is closely affiliated with the University of East Anglia. [15]

Along with the Institute of Food Research [16] and University of East Anglia (UEA), [15] JIC hosted the BA Festival of Science (now the British Science Festival) in September 2006. [17]

The John Innes Centre, University of East Anglia (UEA) [15] The Sainsbury Laboratory, [14] The Earlham Institute and Quadram Institute Bioscience have since 2016, run Women of the Future [18] an event aimed at promoting career in science to young women.

Directors

The John Innes Centre has been directed by:

Notable staff and alumni

Notable staff and alumni include:

John Innes Foundation

The John Innes Foundation (JIF) is an independent charitable foundation (registered Charity No. 1111527) and was formed in 1910 by John Innes. JIF set up the John Innes Horticultural Institution (JIHI) at Merton, London.

Currently, the JIF owns the land and buildings at Newfound Farm, Colney and Church Farm, Bawburgh, Norfolk which are used by researchers from the John Innes Centre.

The JIF trustees also play an active part in the management of John Innes Centre research and have the right to appoint three members of the Governing Council.

The foundation sponsors several graduate studentships each year, support for educational programmes and the infrastructure of the site. They also fund student awards for scientific excellence and science communication. [19] It also owns a very significant collection of archive material held in the Historical Collections library at the John Innes Centre. [20]

The Special Collection and the History of Genetics Library

The John Innes Centre is home to a collection of rare botanical books, lab books, manuscripts and letters documenting the history of genetics and research carried out by its scientists. This includes a letter from William Bateson documenting the first use of the word "genetics". [21] The History of Genetics library also contains the archives of the Genetical Society. [22] [23]

Germplasm Resources Unit

An important part of the John Innes Centre is the John Innes Centre Germplasm Resources Unit (GRU). [24] This seedbank houses a number of germplasm collections, including the Watkins Landrace Wheat Collection, the John Innes Centre Pisum Collection, BBSRC Small Grain Cereal Collection, Crop wild relative collection and several specialist genetic stocks collections.

This material is extensively used by UK and non-UK researchers and breeders, and is an available upon request to research, academic and commercial efforts, subject to availability. The complete list of the material can be found in the GRU database. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bateson</span> English biologist (1861–1926)

William Bateson was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns. His 1894 book Materials for the Study of Variation was one of the earliest formulations of the new approach to genetics.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific research institutes and university research departments in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Baulcombe</span> British plant scientist and geneticist

Sir David Charles Baulcombe is a British plant scientist and geneticist. As of 2017 he is a Royal Society Research Professor. From 2007 to 2020 he was Regius Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sainsbury Laboratory</span> Plant research laboratory in Norwich, Norfolk, England

The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a research institute located at the Norwich Research Park in Norwich, Norfolk, England, that carries out fundamental biological research and technology development on aspects of plant disease, plant disease resistance and microbial symbiosis in plants.

The School of Biological Sciences is a research-led academic community at the University of East Anglia. It works with partners in industry on a range of activities, including translating research discoveries into products, making knowledge and research expertise available through consultancies, contract research and provision of analytical services, as well as partnering industry in training both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enrico Coen</span> British biologist

Enrico Sandro Coen is a British biologist who studies the mechanisms used by plants to create complex and varied flower structures. Coen's research has aimed to define the developmental rules that govern flower and leaf growth at both the cellular level and throughout the whole plant to better understand evolution. He has combined molecular, genetic and imaging studies with population and ecological models and computational analysis to understand flower development.

George Michael Coupland FRS is a Scottish plant scientist, and Research Scientist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Markham</span>

Roy Markham FRS was a British plant virologist who served as the fifth director of the John Innes Centre from 1967 until his death in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norwich Research Park</span> Research orientated business community in Norwich, England

Norwich Research Park is a business community located to the southwest of Norwich in East Anglia close to the A11 and the A47 roads. Set in over 230 hectares of parkland, Norwich Research Park is home to over 12,000 people, including 3,000 researchers and clinicians with an annual research spend of over £130 million. The focus of the community is on creating and supporting new companies and jobs based on bioscience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathie Martin</span> British botanist

Catherine Rosemary Martin is a Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and project leader at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, co-ordinating research into the relationship between diet and health and how crops can be fortified to improve diets and address escalating chronic disease globally.

Michael Webster Bevan is a professor at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Talbot</span>

Nicholas José Talbot FRS FRSB is Group Leader and Executive Director at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich.

The Germplasm Resources Unit is part of the John Innes Centre. Located in the Norwich Research Park, Norwich, England, is a germplasm conservation unit and National Capability supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. This unit houses a number of internationally recognised reference- and working-collections for wheat, oats, barley and peas, which serves UK and non-UK based academic, industrial and non-industrial groups.

Giles Edward Dixon Oldroyd is a professor at the University of Cambridge, working on beneficial Legume symbioses in Medicago truncatula. He has been a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award winner and the Society of Biology (SEB) President's Medal winner. From 2014 Giles has been in the top 1% of highly cited plant scientists across the world.

Jane Elizabeth Parker is a British scientist who researches the immune responses of plants at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.

Dorothea De Winton (1891–1982) was a plant scientist and one of the first female geneticists. She worked at the John Innes Horticultural Institution for over 20 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Osbourn</span> Professor of biology

Anne Elisabeth Osbourn is a professor of biology and group leader at the John Innes Centre, where she investigates plant natural product biosynthesis. She discovered that in the plant genome, the genes involved with biosynthesis organise in clusters. She is also a popular science communicator, poet and is the founder of the Science, Art and Writing (SAW) Initiative. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

The Plant Breeding Institute was an agricultural research organisation in Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 1912 and 1987.

Alice Elizabeth Gairdner (1873–1954) was a British plant scientist, geneticist and cytologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard La Cour</span>

Leonard Francis La Cour was a British cytologist particularly known for his work on plant chromosomes. He spent nearly all of his career at the John Innes Horticultural Institution (1922–72), where, despite a lack of any formal scientific training – he left school at fourteen and never attended university – he rose to senior principal scientific officer. After retiring from the John Innes institute, he held an honorary chair at the University of East Anglia (1973–78). His research encompassed studies of the cell nucleus and chromosome structure and function, using light and electron microscopy. He developed novel cytological methods and published a generally well-received laboratory manual, The Handling of Chromosomes (1942), with his frequent collaborator, C. D. Darlington.

References

  1. Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2016 (PDF) (Report). John Innes Centre.
  2. "The John Innes Institute". Nature. 202 (4930): 337–338. 1964. Bibcode:1964Natur.202U.337.. doi: 10.1038/202337e0 .
  3. Humphries, E. C. (1964). "The John Innes Institute". Nature. 204 (4955): 232. Bibcode:1964Natur.204..232H. doi: 10.1038/204232a0 .
  4. "The Gold Standard: John Innes Centre receives Athena SWAN Gold award". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  5. "The New John Innes Horticultural Institution". Nature. 165 (4207): 955. 1950. Bibcode:1950Natur.165..955.. doi: 10.1038/165955a0 . PMID   15423565.
  6. 1 2 3 John Innes Centre, History. Archived 8 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 August 2008.
  7. "Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge". Nature. 161 (4097): 714. 1948. Bibcode:1948Natur.161R.714.. doi: 10.1038/161714b0 .
  8. "Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge: Dr. G. D. H. Bell". Nature. 161 (4097): 714–715. 1948. Bibcode:1948Natur.161S.714.. doi: 10.1038/161714c0 .
  9. "Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge". Nature. 170 (4335): 913. 1952. Bibcode:1952Natur.170V.913.. doi: 10.1038/170913f0 .
  10. "The Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge". Nature. 176 (4480): 487–488. 1955. Bibcode:1955Natur.176..487.. doi: 10.1038/176487a0 .
  11. John Innes Centre, Science Departments. Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 August 2008.
  12. "Friday Seminars". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  13. "Research". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  14. 1 2 Sainsbury’s laboratory
  15. 1 2 3 University of East Anglia
  16. Institute of food research
  17. "BA Festival of Science 2006". Teacher Scientist Network. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  18. "Women of the Future". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  19. "JIF Studentship Prize Winners". John Innes Foundation. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  20. "Historical Collections". John Innes Foundation. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  21. "William Bateson Letter, page 1". Archived from the original on 26 April 2017.
  22. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 January 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  23. John Innes Foundation Historical Collections (PDF) (Report). John Innes Centre.
  24. "Germplasm Resources Unit". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  25. "SeedStor Homepage". SeedStor. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 14 November 2017.