Dr Philippa Borrill has received a prestigious award from The Society of Experimental Biology (SEB).
The President's Medal awards honour outstanding early-career scientists and are presented at the Society's annual conference each year.
Dr Borrill, a wheat genetics researcher and group leader at the John Innes Centre said: "I'm delighted to be recognised with this award – it's a great opportunity to share my research with the wheat community and audiences outside plant sciences."
As recipient of the 2022 President's Medal Award in the plant biology section, Dr Borrill will give a presentation on her research at the SEB conference at held between July 5 and 8 at Montpelier, France.
On hearing the news of the award Professor Dale Sanders, Director of the John Innes Centre said, "This award is so well deserved, Philippa is an outstanding scientist and is a wonderful role model and mentor, and I am delighted that she has been recognised with a President's Medal."
The awards are divided into categories of animal, cell, and plant biology. To be nominated, researchers must demonstrate: "scientific leadership and have qualities which make them respected by their peers and regarded as a creative and novel thinker."
Dr Borrill was a PhD student and research fellow at the John Innes Centre, leaving in 2018 to take up a lectureship in plant biology at the University of Birmingham. She returned to the John Innes Centre as a group leader in September 2021.
Her research focuses on two key areas: firstly, how genes are switched on and off in wheat's complex genome which has multiple copies of most genes; secondly, how can we improve the nutritional content of wheat especially iron and zinc.
Dr Borrill has contributed to major wheat research publications – notably on the 2018 international collaboration which assembled the most comprehensive genetic map of wheat to date.
Her group has also been instrumental in making wheat genomic tools, web resources and information freely accessible to other researchers.
