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UK Plant Systems Biology Workshop
The rapidly growing field of systems biology uses a highly integrative approach that combines molecular, genetic, imaging, population, ecological and computational approaches to further our understanding of complex biological systems. The John Innes Centre is hosting an annual meeting, on Friday April 20th, that is bringing together established groups of UK scientists for a series [...]

First plants caused ice ages
Research rooted in Norwich science has revealed how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. Scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the John Innes Centre (JIC), now at the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, set out to identify the effects that the first [...]

Adapting wheat for a changing climate
Dr Simon Griffiths has received over £500,000 of funding from the 7th framework program for research from the European Commission, to investigate ways that wheat can be adapted to cope with climate change. The project, which involves working with plant breeders, will focus on the way wheat times when it flowers, and look at how [...]

Investment in bioscience skills and training to help meet economic and social challenges for the future
The John Innes Centre is leading a group of research institutes on the Norwich Research Park (NRP) that are to receive almost £4million of new funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to support the training of the next generation of scientists. The investment will fund 39 PhD students through a Doctoral [...]

Science & Art in Box
GCSE art students from Hethersett High School and scientists from the John Innes Centre were asked to consider the question “How will GM (Genetic Modification) influence the future of our planet?” Their visual responses are contained in a series of boxes that will be on display at JIC following a successful viewing at the Hethersett [...]

Flowers in February
This winter has been so mild we wouldn’t be surprised if plants were blooming in February! But what happens in a normal season? Just how do plants control when and how they flower? Find out in an evening devoted to one of nature’s most magnificent events – flowering – and how research at the John [...]

Natural Factories
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 [...]

Pupils ‘tripling’ their chances of success in science
The Teacher Scientist Network (TSN), which is based at the John Innes Centre, will host an exciting science fair for almost 400 high school pupils from across Eastern Norfolk with leading research scientists tempting them to aim for careers in science and technology. The aim of the day is to encourage Year 8 & 9 [...]

New research to study toxin-producing E. coli strain
Research at the Institute of Food Research and the University of East Anglia on the Norwich Research Park, led by Dr Stephanie Schüller, is to look at how strains of toxin-producing E. coli bacteria infect our bodies and cause life-threatening conditions. A better understanding of the biology of these strains will help to develop new [...]

Understanding how bacteria come back from the dead
Salmonella remains a serious cause of food poisoning in the UK and throughout the EU, in part due to its ability to thrive and quickly adapt to the different environments in which it can grow. New research involving a team of IFR scientists, funded by BBSRC, has taken the first detailed look at what Salmonella [...]

Finding Campylobacter’s weakness
Campylobacter is the most frequent cause of foodborne illness in the UK, with an estimated half a million annual cases in the UK alone, most of which are due to the consumption of contaminated poultry products. One strategy to reduce the number of cases is to reduce the levels of endemic Campylobacter in poultry by [...]

Investment in bioscience skills and training to help meet economic and social challenges
The Institute of Food Research is part of a consortium of research institutes on the Norwich Research Park (NRP) that are to receive almost £4million of new funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to support the training of the next generation of scientists. The investment will fund 39 PhD students through [...]

Next generation sequencing surveys Salmonella
Strains of Salmonella bacteria cause over a billion cases of illness worldwide each year, and over 500,000 deaths. Most infection occurs through contaminated food and water. As part of the strategy to find ways to reduce the effects of Salmonella, Dr Arthur Thompson and colleagues at the Institute of Food Research have produced the first [...]

IFR welcomes new focus on food innovation
The Institute of Food Research welcomes the news that the European Commission, through the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, is to establish a Knowledge Innovation Community focussed on driving innovation in the food chain, from farm to fork. “The news that food has been selected as one of the themes for the new KICs [...]

Vicky Ford MEP visits Norwich Research Park
Vicky Ford, Member of the European Parliament for the East of England, visited Norwich Research Park on Friday 18th November to see for herself the latest developments in science and innovation coming from the institutes and companies based on the park. Vicky is a full member of the Industry, Research and Energy committee and her [...]

Microbiology to play crucial role in ensuring food security
Professor Mike Peck of the Institute of Food Research has joined other experts from the Society for General Microbiology in launching a position statement on food security and safety. This sets out the key role that microbiology will play in ensuring that the 7 billion people in the world have access to safe and nutritious [...]

Forthcoming Event: Next Generation Sequencing in Arabidopsis Research Workshop
17th April 2012 John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK Free to Attend ...

TGAC ISO9001 Accreditation
TGAC Quality Assurance Coordinator Helen Tunney is delighted to announce that our ISO9001 accreditation has been successfully audited for another year. ...

TGAC's Microbial Microbial Genomes Project Leader Interviewed by Biogenic's
TGAC's Microbial Microbial Genomes Project Leader Lisa Crossman was recently interviewed and traslated into Spanish by Biogenic's a Columbian Genetics Blog. ...

Forthcoming Event: Norwich Science Cafe - Cold beansprouts, cucumbers, crowds and coli; the story of an outbreak
22 February 2012 19:30 The Maddermarket Theatre Bar, St. John’s Alley, Norwich, NR2 1DR FREE to attend ...

Investment in bioscience skills and training to help meet economic and social challenges for the future
The Genome Analysis Centre is part of a consortium of research institutes on the Norwich Research Park (NRP) that are to receive almost £4million of funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to support the training...

Hidden genetic variants revealed by new computational technique
In a paper published today in Nature Genetics, Zamin Iqbal from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford and Mario Caccamo from The Genome Analysis Centre in Norwich, along with colleagues, report the development of a novel...

Data-Intensive Computing in Biology Workshop
Monday 6 February – Wednesday 8 February 2012 Merrison Lecture Theatre, STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, Warrington, WA4 4AD Registration is FREE for this event A major theme of biology today...

Investment in cereal genomics to breed better varieties
Two new research projects announced today (21 December) aim to make an important contribution to global efforts to breed improved cereal crops. The projects hope to shed further light on the genomes of wheat and barley, the two...

Norwich gene hunters tackle crop diseases
Norwich scientists are on the trail of some of the most economically damaging organisms that infect crops worldwide. Their latest targets are the parasitic water fungus that causes powdery mildew and the water molds that cause late blight in potatoes and tomatoes and downy mildew in cruciferous vegetables and other crops.

GM trial to reduce agrochemicals
A field trial of GM potatoes is being planted this week to test whether genes from wild relatives can successfully protect commercial potato varieties from late blight, the disease that caused the Irish potato famine, without the need to spray fungicides.

Royal Society global food security report published
The Sainsbury Laboratory welcomes a Royal Society report calling for an investment of £2 billion into a research programme on global food security. The report published today (21 October 2009) says that the UK should lead international research efforts if we are to achieve the massive increase in food crop production that will be required by 2050 to meet global food demands without damaging the environment.

TSL scientists helped crack the code that bacteria use to manipulate agricultural crops
Sebastian Schornack, currently working with Sophien Kamoun at TSL, co-disovered the code which explains how bacterial effectors bind to specific host plant DNA sequences, manipulating host gene expression and leading to disease. This work is now published in Science.