News from the John Innes Centre

Scientists from across the world will meet at the University of Bristol on 6–8 June 2012 for a New Phytologist Workshop on Synthetic Biology. There, they will discuss recent advances in this rapidly evolving and controversial new field. Synthetic biology made headlines in 2010 when researchers at the J Craig Venter Institute announced they had [...]

Plants and microbes produce a wide spectrum of natural products, which give them their huge range of colours, flavours and scents. These chemicals are used to repel pests, diseases or competitors or to attract pollinators, but for humans they represent a potential source of new medicines, flavourings, antimicrobials or other useful compounds. A major area [...]

Plants produce a vast array of natural products, many of which we find useful for making things such as drugs. There are likely to be many other plant natural products that remain undiscovered or under-exploited, and research from The John Innes Centre, which is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), [...]

A new textbook has been released, co-edited by Professor Anne Osbourn of the John Innes Centre, which serves as a guide to the latest advances in the field of plant-derived natural products.   Published by Springer, Plant-derived natural products: synthesis, function and application includes contributions from scientists working at the JIC and the Institute of Food Research, who [...]

The journal Science recently produced a Special Issue on Plant-Microbe Interactions, and the John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory’s expertise in this area was recognised with three of the seven articles being authored by current scientists.  Anne Osbourn surveyed the latest understanding in the chemical diversity in plant defence compounds.  Plants produce a wide array [...]

A new book is being published by the SAW Trust, presenting art and writing inspired by science from the John Innes Centre and Institute of Food Research. Science, Art and Writing (SAW) is a UK-based science education initiative that breaks down traditional barriers between science and the arts. SAW uses themes and images from science [...]

John Innes Centre scientists have found that plants may cluster the genes needed to make defence chemicals. Their findings may provide a way to discover new natural plant products of use as drugs, herbicides or crop protectants. Using a gene cluster that makes an antifungal compound in oats as a template, they uncovered a previously [...]

Scientists from the Norwich Research Park (NRP) have discovered an antibiotic-producing enzyme in oats that could be used in the future to protect major cereal crops from fungal diseases such as “take-all”. This disease is estimated to affect half the UK’s wheat crops costing the agricultural industry up to £60 million per year. NRP scientists [...]