1980 – Professor Harold W Woolhouse appointed Director

John R Postgate became Director of ARC Unit of Nitrogen Fixation (Sussex) following J Chatt’s retirement

1982 – Head of Department of Ultrastructural Studies, Professor R W (Bob) Horne, retired in December; was succeeded by Dr Keith Roberts who established a new Department of Cell Biology in 1983

1983 - First edition of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, co-edited by Dr Keith Roberts, published. This became the leading cell biology textbook, lauded as ‘the most influential cell biology textbook of its time’ (5th edition, 2008)

1985 – Agricultural and Food Research Council’s Forward Policy proposed that its research institutes should be re-organised into eight ‘super’ institutes

The John Innes Streptomyces group described production of the first hybrid antibiotic by genetic engineering

1987 – Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge saw its applied research programmes, farm site and National Seed Development Corporation sold to a private company (Unilever) under the government’s privatisation policy. The non-privatised part of PBI was moved from Cambridge to Norwich and integrated into the AFRC’s new Institute of Plant Science Research (IPSR), which also included the John Innes Institute and the re-named Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory, which remained at Sussex

The NFL’s director J R Postgate retired and was succeeded by Barry Smith.

Professor Woolhouse resigned as Director of JII to become Director of the IPSR; Richard Flavell, PBI plant molecular biologist, was appointed Director of JII

The Sainsbury Laboratory was founded for research on molecular plant pathology, through the foresight of Sir David Sainsbury and the generosity of the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, a Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust. Dr Mike Daniels moved from the JII Genetics Department to be first head of the Sainsbury Laboratory with Drs David Baulcombe and Jonathan Jones as the other two founding senior scientists

1989 – Formal opening of The Sainsbury Laboratory, occupying new buildings on the IPSR campus