The Chatt Lecture

Professor Joseph Chatt CBE was Director of the Unit of Nitrogen Fixation between 1963 and 1980.

The Unit of Nitrogen Fixation was originally based at the University of Sussex, Brighton. In 1987 it became an outstation of the John Innes Centre and the staff relocated to a new building in Norwich in 1995.

His outstanding contributions were recognised by naming the new building to house the Unit after him. Today, it houses two departments within the John Innes Centre; Biological Chemistry and Molecular Microbiology.

Chatt Lecture speakers:

2024 Prof. Hiroaki Suga, University of Tokyo – ‘Pseudo-natural peptides, products and neobiologics for therapeutic applications’

2018 Jim Naismith

2016 Venki Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge – ‘Using recent advances in cryoelectron microscopy to study ribosome structure’

2015 Professor Carolyn Bertozzi, University of California, Berkeley – ‘Glycocalyx engineering toward probing cancer glycome evolution’

2012 Chris Walsh, Harvard Medical School – ‘Posttranslational cascades in the biosynthesis of thiazolyl peptide antibiotics’

2009 Fraser Stoddart, North-western University – ‘Radically enhanced molecular recognition’

2008 Timothy Richmond, ETH Zurich – ‘Chromatin structure and remodelling factor interaction’

2006 Sir Jack Baldwin – ‘Studies on beta-lactam antibiotic biosynthesis’

2005 George Whitesides

2004 Doug Rees

2003 Steve Lippard

2002 Tom Blundell

2000 Robert Huber

Speaker portraits and prints

Speakers at the Chatt Lecture are presented with a print of a work of art by the late Leonie Woolhouse, a local artist and wife of the former Director Harold Woolhouse, which illustrates the life and career of Joseph Chatt CBE FRS.

During their visit to the John Innes Centre, speakers of the named lectures are given the opportunity to have their portrait done by Professor Enrico Coen.