Giles Oldroyd Explained

Birth Name:Giles Edward Dixon Oldroyd
Nationality:British
Fields:Plant symbioses
Workplaces:University of Cambridge
Stanford University
Education:University of East Anglia
University of California, Berkeley
Thesis Title:Identification and characterization of Prf a resistance gene in tomato
Thesis Url:http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b15788202
Thesis Year:1998
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Notable Students:Yiliang Ding
Awards:Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
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Giles Edward Dixon Oldroyd is a professor at the University of Cambridge,[1] working on beneficial Legume symbioses in Medicago truncatula.[2] He has been a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award winner and the Society of Biology (SEB) President's Medal winner.[3] From 2014 Oldroyd has been in the top 1% of highly cited plant scientists across the world.[4]

Education

Oldroyd attended Huntington School, York before studying for a BA degree in plant biology at the University of East Anglia from 1990 to 1994.[5] He completed his PhD in 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley, studying plant/pathogen interactions in tomatoes.[6]

Career and research

After his PhD, he moved to Stanford University to work as a postdoctoral scientist studying legume/rhizobial interactions in the laboratory of Sharon R. Long.[7] [8] [9] In 2002, Oldroyd moved to the John Innes Centre to start his own research group and in 2017 he moved his research group to the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge. In 2020 Oldroyd was appointed to the Russel R Geiger Professorship of Crop Science in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge and Director of the new Crop Science Centre, a partnership between the University of Cambridge and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany.

Oldroyd's work focuses on understanding the signalling mechanisms that allow the associations with these beneficial micro-organisms and the use of this information to transfer the nitrogen-fixing capability from legumes to cereal crops. His website says "Our work has implications for global agriculture, but we are most interested in the application of our work to benefit small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa".

In 2012 Oldroyd was awarded a $10m research grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with other symbiosis research groups. Their aim is to engineer cereal crops such as maize to undergo the beneficial root nodule symbiosis in order to obtain the nutrient Nitrogen without the application of agricultural fertilisers.[10] [11] The Enabling Nutrient Symbioses in Agriculture (ENSA) project received a further $35 million grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations in 2023.[12]

As of March 2023, he has an h-index of 81 according to Google Scholar.

Awards and honours

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Professor Giles Oldroyd . Sainsbury Laboratory.
  2. Oldroyd . Giles .E.D. . Downie . J. Allan . 2008 . Coordinating Nodule Morphogenesis with Rhizobial Infection in Legumes . 10.1146/annurev.arplant.59.032607.092839 . 59 . Annual Review of Plant Biology . 519–546 . 18444906.
  3. Web site: PRESIDENT'S MEDALLISTS . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304134227/http://www.sebiology.org/Documents/Meetings/Pres_Meds.pdf . 2016-03-04 . 2015-01-19 . Society for Experimental Biology.
  4. Web site: Giles Oldroyd's Publons profile . 2022-06-08 . Publons . en.
  5. Web site: Professor Giles Oldroyd . . 29 April 2024.
  6. PhD. 1998. Identification and characterization of Prf a resistance gene in tomato. University of California, Berkeley. 42329477. Giles Edward Dixon . Oldroyd.
  7. Oldroyd . G.E.D . Wais . R. J . Galera . C . Catoira . R . Penmetsa . R. V . Cook . D . Gough . C . Denarie . J . Long . S. R . 2000 . Genetic analysis of calcium spiking responses in nodulation mutants of Medicago truncatula . 10.1073/pnas.230439797 . 97 . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 24 . 13407–13412 . 11078514 . 27237. 2000PNAS...9713407W . free .
  8. Web site: Giles Oldroyd profile . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150119163630/http://www.icrisat.org/gt-bt/VI-ICLGG/oldroyd.pdf . 2015-01-19 . 2015-01-19.
  9. Web site: 2006-07-14 . Passion drives the best and brightest in biology . THE - Times Higher Education.
  10. News: GM crop scientists win $10m grant. BBC News. 2012-07-15.
  11. Web site: ENSA - Enabling Nutrient Symbioses in Agriculture.
  12. Web site: Cambridge-led consortium receives $35m to boost crop production sustainably in sub-Saharan Africa.
  13. Web site: Giles Oldroyd Faculty Member . Faculty Opinions.
  14. Web site: Giles Oldroyd . 19 September 2020 . The Royal Society.