News from the John Innes Centre

The images were obtained using cryo scanning electron microscopy, where the sample is plunged into liquid nitrogen to freeze it and imaged using the electron microscope. The benefit of this method is that the sample is imaged in as close to its natural state as possible, providing the best quality 3D view of an organism. [...]

  The enthusiasm of a school biology teacher helped fuel Professor Mervyn Bibb’s own curiosity. Today, as antibiotic resistance nears a crisis point, his work to understand how soil bacteria produce antibiotics is more vital than ever. What sparked your interest in science? I have always been interested in the “natural world”, but it was [...]

  Receiving his first microscope hooked Professor Mike Bevan on biology. He has pioneered insights taken up by the crop biotech industry and with his current work aims to increase food production.    Did an outdoorsy upbringing in New Zealand help spark your interest in science? I was brought up on a remote sheep farm [...]

Two scientists from the John Innes Centre have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, the premier scientific accolade in the UK. Their breakthroughs in fundamental research have pioneered advances in antibiotic discovery and in crop improvement from which we all benefit. Professor Mike Bevan pioneered methods for expressing foreign genes in plants that [...]

To grow more food more sustainably we need to make plants better at recruiting nutrients and water from soil to seed, according to 12 leading plant scientists writing in Nature.   Essential to this are proteins called membrane transporters. Transporters also effectively carry high-energy molecules to where they are needed, help plants resist pathogens and [...]

How petals get their shape Why do rose petals have rounded ends while their leaves are more pointed? In a study to be published in open access journal PLOS Biology, John Innes Centre and University of East Anglia scientists reveal that the shape of petals and leaves is controlled by a hidden map located within [...]

Scientists from around the world will benefit from five days’ training at the John Innes Centre on bacteria that cause disease in economically important crops including maize, potato and apple. They will learn the complex techniques required to stitch together the genomes of phytoplasmas. Phytoplasmas are a class of bacteria able to modify their plant [...]

For the first time in nearly a century drinkers will be able to taste beer made from Chevallier, the classic heritage barley from the Victorian period. Old varieties are a rich source of new genes, and scientists at the John Innes Centre revived Chevallier from the institute’s Genetic Resources Unit as part of a barley [...]