Biography
After graduating in Botany from Oxford University, I worked for 16 years at the John Innes Institute in Norwich where I obtained a PhD in Plant Physiology. My research interests included the production of haploid plants and the development of in vitro regeneration techniques for a range of crop plants. I then spent 10 years in the commercial sector at ICI Seeds, later Zeneca Plant Sciences, at the Jealott’s Hill Research Station, where I was responsible for an international programme on the development and exploitation of transgenic crops. With the support of a BBSRC Industrial Fellowship, I moved in 1996 to the University of Reading where I am Professor of Plant Biotechnology and have research interests in plant breeding, gene expression and protein evolution. I recently served on the Food Standards Agency Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, and the Royal Society Working Group on biological mechanisms for enhancing food-crop production. I am now a member of the Defra Advisory Committee for Releases to the Environment, the group that advises the UK government on the growing of GM crops.

Recent publications: (see also http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V0Hs4LMAAAAJ

Dunwell, J.M. (2013) Transgenic cereals: current status and future prospects. Journal of Cereal Science (in press) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcs.2013.08.008

Li, Q.G., Zhang, L., Li, C., Dunwell, J.M., Zhang, Y.M. 2013. Comparative genomics suggests that an ancestral polyploidy event leads to enhanced root nodule symbiosis in the Papilionoideae. Molecular Biology and Evolution Sep 4. [Epub ahead of print]

Bandupriya, H.D.D., Gibbings, J.G., Dunwell, J.M. 2013. Overexpression of coconut AINTEGUMENTA-like gene, CnANT, promotes in vitro regeneration in transgenic Arabidopsis. Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture Sept. [Epub ahead of print] 10.1007/s11240-013-0383-2

Antanaviciute, L., Fernández-Fernández, F., Jansen, J., Banchi, E., Evans, K.M., Viola, R., Velasco, R., Dunwell, J.M., Troggio, M., Sargent, D.J. (2012) Development of a dense SNP-based linkage map of an apple rootstock progeny using the Malus Infinium whole genome genotyping array. BMC Genomics 13:203.

Fernández-Fernández, F., Antanaviciute, L., van Dyk, M.M., Tobutt, K.R., Evans, K.M., Rees, D.J.G., Dunwell, J.M., Sargent, D.J. (2012) A genetic linkage map of an apple rootstock progeny anchored to the Malus genome sequence. Tree Genetics Genomes. Doi: 10.1007/s11295-012-0478-7

Dunwell, J.M. and Wetten, A.C. eds. (2012) Transgenic Plants. Methods and Protocols. Methods in Molecular biology 847. Humana Press. 497 pp.

Li, C., Li, M., Dunwell, J.M., Zhang, Y-M. (2012) Gene duplication and an accelerated evolutionary rate in 11S globulin genes are associated with higher protein synthesis in dicots as compared to monocots. BMC Evol. Biol. 12:15.

Dunwell, J.M. (2012) Patents for plants: context and current status. Acta Hort. 941:125-138.

Dunwell, J.M. (2011) Crop biotechnology: prospects and opportunities. J. Agr. Sci. 149:17-27.