An important part of our work is to encourage and enthuse the next generation of scientists. As such, I wanted to create a project that would engage school children.

Four enthusiastic John Innes Centre PhD students started the drive to Jealott’s Hill, Syngenta near Reading for the Plant and Microbe BiotechYES competition

Recently, a mysterious collection of sketchbooks came to light in the John Innes Centre archives.

The smell of the soil was first investigated in 1891 but the main compound that caused it was not isolated until 1965 by Gerber and Lechevalier, who named it “geosmin”

This blog was originally published on Erica's blog; Scientist Erica and has been reproduced here with her consent.

In 1967 the John Innes Institute, as it was then known upped sticks and moved from Bayfordbury in Hertfordshire to Norwich.

In February 2017, Professor George Lomonossoff and Dr Ian Gibson revived a hundred-year relationship between the John Innes Centre and St Petersburg, Russia.

Arabidopsis’ story continues (catch up on part 1 and part 2) and the weed now forms the foundation of thousands of studies around the world, including at the John Innes Centre.

It would be easy to assume that with the characteristics laid out in part 1 of this blog, that Arabidopsis was always an obvious choice as a model organism, however its story is as tangled and complex as the bed of weeds it was plucked from.