The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science. JICs mission is to advance the scientific understanding of plants and microbes and to apply this knowledge for the benefit of society and the environment through research, knowledge exchange, commercialisation and training.
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. In 2014, JIC was awarded a silver Athena SWAN Charter award for equality in the workplace. JICs strategy is to ensure world leading research and to develop opportunities for innovative and long-term research in plant and microbial sciences; its strategic priorities are aligned with the BBSRCs remit to focus on food security,
health ageing and industrial biotechnology.
JICs research focuses on the growth underpinning yield in plants, biotic interactions of plants, wheat improvement and metabolism of plants and microbes. A central principle of JICs research is the use of genetics, continuing the long and prestigious
history of
genetics at the JIC to: translate research in the areas of yield and quality in crop plants, and the use of microbial and plant products to promote human
health and the use of plants and microbes in biotechnology; use novel genetic approaches to generate new varieties and strains of plants and microbes that can be used to further knowledge and to enhance productive and biotechnological capacity; apply modern
biotechnology to
agriculture in an environmentally sustainable context; use a wide range of contemporary approaches to develop dialogue with policy makers and the public; train the scientific leaders of the future in a broad range of scientific and transferable skills.
Former staff and alumni include William Ormston Backhouse, Rowland Biffen, David Baulcombe, George Coupland, Liam Dolan, David Hopwood, Charles Leonard Huskins, Nicholas Harberd, Richard Anthony Jefferson, Georgii Karpechenko, Kenneth Mather, Elizabeth Anne Edwards, Giles Oldroyd, Leonard Francis La Cour, Alison Mary Smith, Morley Benjamin Crane, Dan Lewis, Cathie Martin, Mike D Gale, Mike Bevan and Clayton Oscar Person. The expertise of JIC scientists has made important contributions to industry and society in the UK and worldwide. These include the discovery and application of conserved gene order in grasses for
cereal improvement; characterisation of the dominant dwarfing
phenotype that underpins improved wheat crop productivity; the understanding and application of flowering time; contributing to the first sequencing of a plant
genome and the development of genomic systems for exploiting Streptomyces, the principal source of anti-infectives for human health. It has been independently estimated that JIC research contributes as much as £3.4Bn to the global
economy in the field of wheat production alone.
Last Updated on: Sep 24, 2024