Jim Dunwell's Biography

Jim Dunwell, Professor, University of Reading

After graduating in Botany from Oxford University, I worked for 16 years at the John Innes Institute in Norwich where I obtained a PhD in Plant Physiology. My research interests included the production of haploid plants and the development of in vitro regeneration techniques for a range of crop plants. I then spent 10 years in the commercial sector at ICI Seeds, later Zeneca Plant Sciences, at the Jealott’s Hill Research Station, where I was responsible for an international programme on the development and exploitation of transgenic crops. With the support of a BBSRC Industrial Fellowship, I moved in 1996 to the University of Reading where I am Professor of Plant Biotechnology and have research interests in plant breeding, gene expression and protein evolution. I recently served on the Food Standards Agency Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, and the Royal Society Working Group on biological mechanisms for enhancing food-crop production. I am now a member of the Defra Advisory Committee for Releases to the Environment, the group that advises the UK government on the growing of GM crops.