1990 – Majority of PBI’s scientific staff re-located to newly built facilities at IPSR where they formed the ‘Cambridge Laboratory’ under Dr Colin Law

1992 – AFRC confirmed the move of AFRC Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory to Colney

1993 – Dr Mike D Gale succeeded Dr C Law as Head of Cambridge Laboratory

1994 – Merger of John Innes Institute, Cambridge Laboratory and Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory to form the new John Innes Centre. Professor R Flavell became first director of JIC

Dr K Roberts established the first ‘Teacher Scientist Network’ in the UK, supported by The Gatsby Foundation with space provided by JIC

BBSRC was established by Royal Charter by incorporation of the former AFRC with the biotechnology and biological sciences programmes of the former Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC)

Professor D Hopwood made Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for ‘services to genetics’

1995 – Members of Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory staff moved to Colney
The Joseph Chatt Building and the conference centre complex were formally opened in October

Professor M D Gale’s research on cereal genome structure revealed conservation in gene order (synteny) in all cereal species, enabling a step-change in breeding strategies and the cloning of genes from these species

Professor Keith Chater elected FRS for his work demonstrating how the ability of streptomycetes to produce antibiotics is connected to unusual features of their growth

1996 – Professor M D Gale elected FRS in recognition of his discovery that the organisation of genes in grasses, including the major crops, rice, maize and wheat, is so conserved that predictions can be made from one crop to another

1998 – Professor R Flavell elected FRS for his research and leadership in plant molecular genetics. He was among the first to investigate plant genomes at the level of DNA sequence

Professor R Flavell resigned on joining the biotechnology company Ceres in California, USA; Professor M D Gale appointed acting Director of JIC

Royal Society awards Professor M D Gale and Graham Moore the prestigious Darwin Medal in recognition of their research on cereal genetics

Professor Enrico Coen elected FRS for his outstanding research into how flowers are formed. Amongst other important genes that control flowering, he discovered the genes that switch growing shoots to produce flowers

A £1.3 million controlled environment facility opened. The new facility is important to several of JIC’s main research programmes, including work on rice and studies on the sensitivity of plants to day-length

1999 – Professor Chris Lamb appointed Director

Dr Nick Harberd’s team identified and isolated the dwarfing gene that was central to the ‘Green Revolution’ through their research on synteny and the model plant species, Arabidopsis

Professor E Coen’s team solved 250 year mystery of peloric or ‘monster’ flowers in toadflax (Linaria vulgaris). They showed that the abnormal toadflax flowers are caused by a naturally occurring mutation of a single gene that controls flower symmetry

An international research group of over 200 scientists, from 35 laboratories, published the complete DNA sequence for chromosomes 2 and 4 of the tiny weed Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress), two of this plant’s five chromosomes. Professor Mike Bevan oversaw the co-ordination of chromosome 4 sequencing work

Professor Ray Dixon elected FRS for his major contributions to understanding the genetic basis of nitrogen fixation. He created the first ‘engineered’ nitrogen-fixing microbe