Giles Oldroyd facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Giles Oldroyd
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|---|---|
| Born |
Giles Edward Dixon Oldroyd
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| Nationality | British |
| Education | University of East Anglia University of California, Berkeley |
| Awards | Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Plant symbioses |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge Stanford University |
| Thesis | Identification and characterization of Prf a resistance gene in tomato (1998) |
| Notable students | Yiliang Ding |
Giles Edward Dixon Oldroyd is a professor at the University of Cambridge. He studies how plants, especially legumes, work together with tiny living things in the soil. This teamwork helps plants grow better. He is known as one of the top plant scientists in the world.
Contents
Learning About Plants
Giles Oldroyd went to Huntington School in York. He then studied plant biology at the University of East Anglia. This was from 1990 to 1994.
In 1998, he earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. For his PhD, he studied how plants like tomatoes fight off diseases.
His Work and Research
After finishing his PhD, Giles Oldroyd moved to Stanford University. There, he worked as a postdoctoral scientist. He studied how legumes (like peas and beans) team up with special bacteria called rhizobia.
In 2002, Oldroyd started his own research group at the John Innes Centre. Later, in 2017, he moved his group to the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. In 2020, he became a professor at the University of Cambridge. He also became the Director of the new Crop Science Centre. This center works to improve crops.
Helping Plants Grow Stronger
Professor Oldroyd's main work is about understanding how plants talk to helpful tiny organisms. These organisms live in the soil. He wants to use this knowledge to help other crops, like maize (corn), get nutrients more easily.
His goal is to help plants get a nutrient called Nitrogen without needing a lot of fertilisers. This could be a big help for farmers around the world. He is especially interested in helping small farmers in Africa.
In 2012, Professor Oldroyd received a large research grant. It was for $10 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He worked with other scientists to try and give cereal crops the ability to team up with helpful bacteria. This team-up forms special bumps on roots called root nodules. These nodules help the plants get Nitrogen from the air.
The project, called ENSA (Enabling Nutrient Symbioses in Agriculture), received another $35 million grant in 2023. This shows how important his work is.
Awards and Recognition
Professor Oldroyd has received many awards for his important scientific work:
- BBSRC David Phillips Fellow (2002-2007)
- Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2002-2005)
- European Molecular Biology Organization Young Investigator Award (2005-2008)
- Presidents Medal from the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) (2006)
- European Research Council young investigator (2009–Present)
- Named a Thomson Reuters Top 1% Highly cited researcher (2014)
- Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (2020)
