John Innes Centre

The John Innes Centre (JIC) located in Norwich, Norfolk, England is Europe's premier independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science.

History

The John Innes Horticultural Institution was founded in 1910 at Merton Park, Surrey (now London Borough of Merton), with funds bequeathed by John Innes, a merchant and philanthropist. The Institution occupied Innes's former estate at Merton Park until 1945 when it moved to Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire. It moved to its present site in 1967. [http://www.jic.ac.uk/corporate/about/history.htm John Innes Centre, History.] Retrieved 2008-08-10.]

John Innes Compost was developed by the institution in the 1930s.

In the 1980s, the administration of the John Innes Institute was combined with that of the Plant Breeding Institute and the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory. In 1994, following the relocation of the operations of other two organisations to the Norwich site, the three were merged as the John Innes Centre.

Operations

The institute is divided into seven departments: Biological Chemistry, Cell & Developmental Biology, Computational & Systems Biology, Crop Genetics, Disease & Stress Biology, Metabolic Biology and Molecular Microbiology. [http://www.jic.ac.uk/corporate/science-departments/ John Innes Centre, Science Departments.] Retrieved 2008-08-10.]

JIC has a large contingent of Postdoctoral researchers, many of which are recruited onto the institutes controversial Post-doctoral Traning Fellowship program, the implementation of which has proved problematic.Fact|date=August 2008 Nevertheless, JIC has a strong tradition of training PhD students and post-docs. PhD degrees obtained via JIC are awarded by the University of East Anglia.

JIC is also the Norwich base of the Sainsbury Laboratory, an institute focussed on plant disease. Although well integrated with JIC, The Sainsbury Laboratory is closely affiliated with the University of East Anglia.

Along with the Institute of Food Research and University of East Anglia (UEA) it hosted the BA Festival of Science in September 2006.

References

External links

* [http://www.jic.bbsrc.ac.uk/ John Innes Centre]
* [http://www.jicgenomelab.co.uk/ John Innes Genome Laboratory]
* [http://www.the-ba.net/the-ba/Events/FestivalofScience/ BA Festival of Science]