Arabidopsis research community makes lifetime award to John Innes Centre group leader

Professor Dame Caroline Dean FRS has been given a lifetime achievement award by the international Arabidopsis research community. 

Professor Dean, a group leader at the John Innes Centre, is one of three research leaders worldwide to receive the prestigious award for 2026, the other two being Dr Julian Schroeder, University of California, San Diego, and Dr Mary Lou Guerinot, Dartmouth University, USA. 

Professor Dame Caroline Dean said: “I’m grateful to receive this award and thankful to be part of such an engaged and inspiring community of scientists worldwide.” 

Set up in 2023 by the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC) in honour of Philip N. Benfey, a world-renowned Arabidopsis scientist, the award recognises researchers whose careers have made a major impact on plant science and its community of scientists.  

Joanna Friesner, Coordinator and Executive Director of NAASC said: “Caroline Dean is a long-time, well-respected member of the Arabidopsis community. Her engagement spans an ongoing, outstanding career where she’s made numerous pivotal contributions, especially to our knowledge of flowering regulation. Equally as important are her cultivation and mentoring of numerous plant scientists, and her engagement in a multinational community of Arabidopsis scientists that cooperate to ensure a strong future for global plant science.” 

 Arabidopsis thaliana is a pervasive, nondescript weed that scientists adopted as their “lab rat” and is consequently one of the most studied plant species. 

Fundamental findings based on the straightforward genome of Arabidopsis have been applied to developing new and improved crop varieties, innovations in plant conservation, as well as unlocking insights in emerging fields such as epigenetics. 

Over many years at the John Innes Centre, the Dean group has used Arabidopsis as their model to investigate how plants sense and remember winter via a process of gene silencing. Their investigations into the flowering time gene FLC have revealed core mechanistic principles that apply not only to plants but to human medical science. 

Awards are based on the nominations submitted by scientific colleagues and former mentees. The criteria for the winners cover outstanding science, positive mentoring, and public engagement. 

One former mentee of Professor Dean remarked in their submission: “Working in her lab and being guided by such a strong and inspiring woman scientist has undoubtedly shaped my own career… Conversations with her are always engaging and illuminating, and she has a unique ability to make science feel exciting and deeply rewarding.” 

Another remarked: “Caroline’s impact on Arabidopsis research, plant biology, and more broadly in genome science are undeniable. She was part of a golden generation of scientists that established Arabidopsis as the primary model for plant biology in the 1990s-2010s.”