Research and career
Gray joined the University of Sheffield as a University Research Fellow in 1993. She was promoted to Professor in 2008, and established their Institute for Sustainable Food. [2] Gray works in plant cell signalling. Her early worked looked at the molecular pathways that allow plant stomata to open and close, using molecular biology and the fossil record. [3] Stomata are also known as guard cells – tiny pores that are responsible for gas exchange (e.g. absorption of carbon dioxide and release of oxygen). Gray demonstrated that the genes that regulate stomata impact crop yields. [4] [5]
She looks to identify strategies that help agriculture exist in a changing climate. She studies variations in plant stomata (alleles) that have a negative impact on crop yields. In Latin America, 80% of bean crop yields can be lost to seasonal droughts. Gray demonstrated that manipulating the density and size of bean stomata can modify the water use efficiency, and save up to 4.5 billion litres of water a year. [6] The Pod Yield Project investigated soy and tepary beans. She developed a strategy to improve rice yields under abiotic stresses, which was awarded a Newton Prize in 2017. [7] Alongside beans, Gray studied how to make rice plants more resilient to climate change. [4]
In 2021 Gray was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization. [8] [9]
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