Board of the Natural History Museum

The Prime Minister has appointed Professor Christopher Gilligan to the Board of the Natural History Museum for a period of four years from 18 May.

Professor Christopher Gilligan
Professor Gilligan is a Mathematical Biologist and Head of the School of Biological Sciences at University of Cambridge. He has a range of senior experience at national and international levels including as an ad hoc advisor to UK Government Departments and to International Government Organisations.

The Museum was looking for for a person with broad expertise in natural sciences.

The Natural History Museum is a scientific research institution and a major cultural attraction that welcomes nearly 5 million visitors a year, at the heart of which is the national collection of 70 million specimens from the natural world and 6 million rare books and manuscripts. These collections are of international significance and are regarded as an important part of the UK’s science infrastructure. The Natural History Museum comprises the main site at South Kensington, a small museum based on Walter Rothschild’s former home at Tring and a storage centre at Wandsworth.

Alex Webb promoted to Reader

Dr Alex Webb has been promoted to Reader in Cell Signalling as from the start of the next academic year.

This is a very well deserved promotion for one of the young(ish) stars of the department and I am sure that, like me, you will want to offer your best congratulations.

David Baulcombe

Independent and Parallel Recruitment of Preexisting Mechanisms Underlying C4 Photosynthesis

Work conducted by Naomi Brown and others in Julian Hibberd's lab (including two former Part II students) is published in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1201248). Naomi provided the first evidence that multiple genes important in the C4 pathway share a common regulatory mechanism. The work also shows that genes in phylogenetically distant C3 plants are primed to be recruited into the C4 pathway, and so offers major insight into the origins of the C4 pathway. When Naomi returns from maternity leave she will investigate the importance of these new findings on a recently funded grant by the BBSRC.

Possible loss of website

There is a possibility of the Plant Sciences website (http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/) going down this weekend as power on the Downing Site is interrupted

Beverley Glover awarded the William Bate Hardy Prize

The Council of the Cambridge Philosophical Society unanimously agreed with its nominating committee that Dr Beverley Glover, jointly with Dr Peter Forster, should be awarded the William Bate Hardy Prize for 2010.

The Prize is founded in memory of Sir William Bate Hardy (1864-1934) who was a Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. It is awarded once in three years “for the best original memoir, investigation or discovery by a member of the University of Cambridge in connection with Biological Science that may have been published during the three years immediately preceding”.

Since the awards began in 1965, five of the twenty-two previous prize winners have gone on to win Nobel Prizes in either chemistry or physiology and medicine.

Cambridge Scientists win major component of $4 Million joint funding initiative

Cambridge Scientists win major component of $4 Million joint funding initiative funded jointly by BBSRC (UK) and NSF (US)

Plants really matter, and for the next generation, plant and microbial productivity will become the focus of key global issues: the basis for feeding an additional 2-3 billion mouths, to drive forward an economy currently trading on past sunlight, and maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change. The enzymatic powerhouse at the heart of these processes takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and uses light energy to produce sugars and other building blocks of life. This enzyme, called Rubisco, is rather flawed and somewhat promiscuous: it engages with oxygen as well as carbon dioxide, to the detriment of potential plant productivity. Some plants have evolved mechanisms, which act like biological turbochargers, to concentrate CO2 around Rubisco and improve the enzyme’s operating efficiency. These carbon concentrating mechanisms have evolved in certain key crops, such as sugar cane and maize. Other plants, such as aquatic algae, have developed mechanism in parallel which actively concentrate bicarbonate as a source of CO2 for Rubisco.

An $8 million collaborative funding opportunity was recently offered by the UK BBSRC and the US NSF, with the challenge of surpassing these known pathways of carbon fixation, and maximising plant yield for the future. Selected scientists were pitched together to develop international consortia to develop novel ideas, prompted and guided by a scientific mentors and administrators. Four proposals were invited to be taken forward for development and funding, two of which involve scientists in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. The Ideas Lab experience was likened by Prof Griffiths to be a combination of Big Brother, The Weakest Link and The Apprentice! Prof. Griffiths is the consortium leader for one of the joint proposals funded, which will be exploring the operation of an algal carbon concentrating mechanism, and the possibility for introducing components into higher plant cells. Dr Julian Hibberd is part of another consortium also supported by the BBSRC/NSF initiative, seeking to increase the efficiency of light harvesting by broadening the wavelengths of light, as used by bacteria, to power biophysical transport processes in higher plants.

This research support will consolidate a major Plant Sciences initiative at Cambridge, which is exploring the means to improve photosynthesis from the perspective of sustainable plant productivity and crop yields for the future. Additional work is also being undertaken by Dr Hibberd, investigating the potential introduction of C4 photosynthetic traits into crops such as rice. This programme is part of a broader sweep of strategic research relevant to sustainable crop development, involving RNAi, pathogen suppression and epidemiological controls to maintain yields in a changing climate.

Peter Barham, 1926-2011

I am sorry to announce the recent death of Peter Barham on Sunday 23 January 2011. Peter started work at 14 years of age in the then Botany School in 1941 in the Plant Physiology section. After a period of National Service Peter graduated to Senior Technician. In 1965 together with Tom ap Rees Peter was instrumental in organizing the first Biology of Cells practicals which were held in the Elementary Lab (Teaching Lab) before being transferred to Zoology. In his time in Plant Physiology Peter trained many technicians, three of whom have remained in the department for the last forty years.

In 1971 Peter was promoted to Chief Technician, a post he held until his retirement in 1989. Peter’s funeral will be held at the Cambridge Crematorium West Chapel at 11-15AM on Friday 4th February 2011.

Glyn Jones