Influential minds are working in agri-tech

Standout researchers of the last decade are named in a new report by Thomson Reuters, which is a compilation of influential names in science. Nine scientists from research organisations within the Agri-TechE region are listed as among the top 1 % of highly cited scientists in the world.

Researchers from the John Innes Centre, Sainsbury Laboratory and University of Cambridge Plant Sciences Department have been named as undertaking research with the highest global impact.

The results, published on the website www.highlycited.com, demonstrate the research excellence in plant and crop bioscience within the Agri-TechE area.

The scientists are:

• Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Regius Professor of Botany and head of the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. His research focusses on disease resistance in plants and in particular RNa silencing, which controls plant gene expression.
• Professor Cyril Zipfel, head of laboratory and whose research is on plant innate immunity to disease.
• Professor Sophien Kamoun, who studies the biology of filamentous plant pathogens, including the pathogen responsible for potato blight.
• Professor Jonathan Jones, who works on plant-pathogen interactions and the development of biotechnological solutions to important crop diseases.
• Dr Joe Win, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Sophien Kamoun’s lab – Joe works on the pathogen responsible for blight affecting potatoes and tomatoes
• Professor Alison Smith, who studies how plants metabolise sugars and starch and how these affect their growth and yield. Professor Caroline Dean, whose research on vernalization – the period of cold some plants need in order to flower – is leading other studies at the John Innes Centre and around the world, including into how plants will adapt to climate change.
• Professor Giles Oldroyd, who leads research programmes on how cereal and maize crops could be genetically modified to ‘fix’ their own nitrogen from the air as peas and legumes can, with implications for reducing artificial fertilisers and improving yield in the UK and in countries which do not have access to nitrogen fertilisers.