Julian Hibberd

Julian Hibberd FRS
Born	December 1969 (age 55) [1]
Alma mater	Bangor University (BSc, PhD)
Scientific career
Fields	Plant Sciences [2]
Institutions	University of Cambridge University of Sheffield [3]
Thesis	Effects of elevated CO2 on biotrophic pathogens: powdery mildew of barley  (1994)
Doctoral advisor	John Farrar Bob Whitbread
Other academic advisors	Julie Scholes Paul Quick John C Gray Malcolm Press [4] [5]
Website	www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/julianhibberd

Julian Michael Hibberd FRS (born December 1969) ^[1] is a Professor of Photosynthesis at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. ^{[2] [6] [7] [8]}

Education

Hibberd was educated at Bangor University where he was awarded an undergraduate degree in 1991 followed by a PhD in 1994. ^{[4] [9] [6]} His PhD thesis investigated the effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO₂) on powdery mildew in barley and was supervised by John Farrar and Bob Whitbread. ^[10]

Research and career

Following his PhD, Hibberd completed three years of postdoctoral research at the University of Sheffield with Paul Quick, ^[11] Malcolm Press ^[3] and Julie Scholes, ^[12] investigating interactions between parasitic plants and their hosts. ^{[13] [14]} He moved to Cambridge to work with John C. Gray in 1997, ^{[4] [15] [16]} and started his own group in 2000.

The Hibberd laboratory investigates the efficiency of the C₄ photosynthetic pathway, with the aim of understanding its repeated evolution and also contributing to improving crop productivity. ^{[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]} Hibberd's research has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ^{[25] [26]} the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), ^[27] the FP7 program of the European Union, ^[4] and the European Research Council (ERC).

Hibberd served as an associate editor of the scientific journal Plant Physiology from 2012 to 2022. ^[28]

Awards and honours

In 2000 Hibberd was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship to investigate the role of photosynthesis in veins of C3 plants. ^{[7] [13] [29]} In 2005 he was awarded a President's medal by the Society for Experimental Biology, and in 2007 The Melvin Calvin Award by the International Society of Photosynthesis Research.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 2008 Hibberd was named by the journal Nature as one of "Five crop researchers who could change the world" for his research that is attempting to replace C₃ carbon fixation in rice with C₄ carbon fixation. ^[25] This would greatly increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and create a rice cultivar which could "have 50% more yield" which "would impact billions of people".

Hibberd was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2025. ^{[30] [31]}

References

1. "Julian Michael Hibberd: December 1969". London: Companies House. Archived from the original on 2016-06-10.
2. Julian Hibberd publications indexed by Google Scholar
3. R A Bungard; A V Ruban; J M Hibberd; M C Press; Peter Horton; Julie D Scholes (1 February 1999). "Unusual carotenoid composition and a new type of xanthophyll cycle in plants". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 96 (3): 1135–1139. Bibcode:1999PNAS...96.1135B. doi:10.1073/PNAS.96.3.1135. ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   15363 . PMID   9927706. Wikidata   Q34490415.
4. "Julian Hibberd biography". hibberdlab.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
5. "Dr Julian Hibberd, Department of Plant Sciences". University of Cambridge. 3 June 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-10-06.
6. Julian Hibberd publications from Europe PubMed Central
7. "Julian Hibberd, Emmanuel College Cambridge". emma.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05.
8. "Molecular Physiology". plantsci.cam.ac.uk. 4 June 2013.
9. Hibberd, Julian Michael (1994). Effects of elevated CO₂ on biotrophic pathogens: powdery mildew of barley (PhD thesis). University of Wales, Bangor. OCLC   33848839. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.484121.
10. Hibberd, J.M.; Whitbread, R.; Farrar, J.F. (1996). "Effect of elevated concentrations of CO₂ on infection of barley by Erysiphe graminis". Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology. 48 (1): 37–53. doi:10.1006/pmpp.1996.0004.
11. "Professor W Paul Quick". Sheffield: shef.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2015-10-26.
12. "Professor Julie Scholes". Sheffield: sheffield.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-04-04.
13. "President's medallists: SEB Bulletin July 2005". Society for Experimental Biology. Archived from the original on 2014-02-02.
14. Julian Hibberd. Insights into the evolution of the C₄ pathway? on YouTube , The Journal of Experimental Botany
15. "Gray, Prof. John Clinton" . Who's Who (177th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2025. p. 2720. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U17926. ISBN   9781399411837. OCLC   1427336388.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
16. Michael Knoblauch; Hibberd JM; Gray JC; van Bel AJ (1 September 1999). "A galinstan expansion femtosyringe for microinjection of eukaryotic organelles and prokaryotes". Nature Biotechnology . 17 (9): 906–909. doi:10.1038/12902. ISSN   1087-0156. PMID   10471935. Wikidata   Q33872994.
17. One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative (23 October 2019). "One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants". Nature . 574 (7780): 679–685. doi:10.1038/S41586-019-1693-2. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   6872490 . PMID   31645766. Wikidata   Q90911773.
18. Antony N Dodd; Neeraj Salathia; Anthony Hall; et al. (1 July 2005). "Plant circadian clocks increase photosynthesis, growth, survival, and competitive advantage". Science . 309 (5734): 630–633. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.1115581. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   16040710. Wikidata   Q34436491.
19. "The Hibberd Lab at The Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
20. Julian M Hibberd; W Paul Quick (1 January 2002). "Characteristics of C4 photosynthesis in stems and petioles of C3 flowering plants". Nature . 415 (6870): 451–454. doi:10.1038/415451A. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   11807559. Wikidata   Q34520570.
21. R S Millen; R G Olmstead; K L Adams; et al. (1 March 2001). "Many parallel losses of infA from chloroplast DNA during angiosperm evolution with multiple independent transfers to the nucleus". The Plant Cell . 13 (3): 645–658. doi:10.1105/TPC.13.3.645. ISSN   1040-4651. PMID   11251102. Wikidata   Q57252801.
22. Julian M Hibberd; John E Sheehy; Jane A Langdale (18 January 2008). "Using C4 photosynthesis to increase the yield of rice-rationale and feasibility". Current Opinion in Plant Biology. 11 (2): 228–231. doi:10.1016/J.PBI.2007.11.002. ISSN   1369-5266. PMID   18203653. Wikidata   Q34737664.
23. Wang, Peng; Fouracre, Jim; Kelly, Steven; Karki, Shanta; Gowik, Udo; Aubry, Sylvain; Shaw, Michael K.; Westhoff, Peter; Slamet-Loedin, Inez H.; Quick, W. Paul; Hibberd, Julian M.; Langdale, Jane A. (2012). "Evolution of GOLDEN2-LIKE gene function in C₃ and C₄ plants". Planta. 237 (2): 481–495. doi:10.1007/s00425-012-1754-3. PMC   3555242 . PMID   22968911.
24. Tolley, B. J.; Sage, T. L.; Langdale, J. A.; Hibberd, J. M. (2012). "Individual Maize Chromosomes in the C3 Plant Oat Can Increase Bundle Sheath Cell Size and Vein Density". Plant Physiology. 159 (4): 1418–1427. doi:10.1104/pp.112.200584. PMC   3425187 . PMID   22675083.
25. Emma Marris (1 December 2008). "Agronomy: Five crop researchers who could change the world". Nature . 456 (7222): 563–568. doi:10.1038/456563A. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   19052600. Wikidata   Q55051172.
26. "Boosting rice yields generates optimism". southwestfarmpress.com. 2010-06-11. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
27. "UK Government grants awarded to Julian Hibberd". Swindon: Research Councils UK. Archived from the original on 2016-03-21.
28. "Plant Physiology Editorial Board". Rockville, Maryland: American Society of Plant Biologists. Archived from the original on 2015-04-22.
29. "David Phillips fellows". Swindon: BBSRC. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05.
30. "Professor Julian Hibberd elected as Fellow of the Royal Society". cam.ac.uk. 2025-05-20. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
31. "Professor Julian Hibberd FRS". royalsociety.org. Royal Society. 2025.