Norwich Research Park is celebrating the appointment of one of the US’s top plant pathologists to work at the Sainsbury Laboratory (SL) in the Norwich Research Park. Professor Sophien Kamoun, originally from Tunisia, is a world expert in the fungus-like plant pathogen that causes potato late blight, the disease that was responsible for the Irish potato famine. Recruiting Sophien from Ohio State University is not only a fantastic coup for the Sainsbury Laboratory, but will undoubtedly strengthen the international scientific excellence of the Norwich Research Park.

Sophien has an outstanding career history, having worked in Paris, the University of California, Wageningen University (the Netherlands) and most recently Ohio State University. The Norwich Research Park will also be welcoming his partner and Ohio State University faculty Saskia Hogenhout who will be starting a senior fellowship at the John Innes Centre (JIC) to study insect-transmitted plant diseases.

"Sophien will be a wonderful colleague at the SL. He is a leader in the research community that studies the potato late blight pathogen, Phytophthora infestans, and also other Phytophthora diseases” says Jonathan Jones, head of the Sainsbury Lab, “I am absolutely delighted that we at the SL and JIC have been able to attract Sophien and his partner Saskia back to Europe from the US.  With Sophien's recruitment, the UK will have unparalleled expertise in studying oomycetes, a unique and fascinating class of plant pathogen that also causes downy mildews and white rusts".

Sophien is expected to start moving his lab from the US in January 2007 and is excited by the prospect of moving to Norwich to work at the Sainsbury Laboratory. “I am thrilled about joining the Sainsbury Laboratory, which has a longstanding tradition as a hub for cutting edge plant research. My objective is to build on and contribute to this tradition.” He says, “I feel the timing is perfect. The availability of multiple genome sequences for Phytophthora and related species enables us to explore new research questions in ways that were unthinkable just a few years ago. I am also very much looking forward to strengthening my current collaborations with European colleagues as well as developing new ones.”

Chris Lamb, director of JIC also welcomed the news, “I am delighted that we have again competed internationally to bring to Norwich two outstanding young investigators working on exciting scientific problems of great potential significance to sustainability.”

Kamoun’s appointment is part of the planned growth of the Sainsbury Laboratory research portfolio which aims to recruit a further two Project Leaders to do research into new areas of plant biology based on plant-pathogen interactions. The institute was recently awarded a 5-year funding package of £17M by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation as part of its continued support for the laboratory.

The Sainsbury Laboratory (SL) is located at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, and accommodates approximately 95 scientists. This research institution is a charity dedicated to making fundamental discoveries about plants and how they interact with microbes and viruses. SL staff members are employed jointly by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and by the SL. The SL favours daring, long-term research over work that could be equally well carried out elsewhere. The institute is funded through the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and from competitive grants from the EU and BBSRC.

The Gatsby Charitable Foundation awards grants for charitable activity in a number of areas including scientific research, economic renewal and the arts. In the area of plant science it aims to develop basic research in fundamental processes of plant growth and development and molecular plant pathology, to encourage young researchers in this field in the UK and to support improved introduction to the world of plants within school science teaching. 

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK's principal public funder of basic and strategic research across the biosciences. It is funded primarily by the Science Budget through the Government's Office of Science and Innovation. BBSRC invests over £350M pa in a wide range of research that makes a significant contribution to the quality of life for UK citizens and supports advances in the agriculture, food, chemical, healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.