Dame Janet Maureen Thornton, (born 23 May 1949) is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the

European Bioinformatics Institute The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) which, as part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) family, focuses on research and services in bioinformatics. It is located on the Wel ...

(EBI), part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researchers in structural

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

, using computational methods to understand protein structure and function. She served as director of the EBI from October 2001 to June 2015, and played a key role in

ELIXIR ELIXIR (the European life-sciences Infrastructure for biological Information) is an initiative that will allow life science laboratories across Europe to share and store their research data as part of an organised network. Its goal is to bring t ...

Education

Thornton attended

Bury Grammar School (The key that opens sacred doors) , established = , type = Independent day schoolGrammar school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Headmaster , head ...

until 1967, where she was

head girl Head boy and head girl are student leadership roles in schools, representing the school's entire student body. They are normally the most senior prefects in the school. The terms are commonly used in the British education system as well as in Aus ...

. After graduating in physics from the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

, Thornton completed a master's degree in

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, and a PhD in

at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London in 1973.

Career and research

After her PhD, Thornton worked in molecular biophysics with

David Chilton Phillips David Chilton Phillips, Baron Phillips of Ellesmere, KBE, FRS (7 March 1924 – 23 February 1999) was a pioneering, British structural biologist and an influential figure in science and government. Research Phillips lead the team which deter ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1978, she returned to the National Institute for Medical Research, and following that took up to a Fellowship at

Birkbeck College , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

, part of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

. In 1990 she was appointed Professor and Director of the Biomolecular Structure and Modeling Unit in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

and later also was appointed to the Bernal Chair in the Crystallography Department at

Birkbeck College , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. Thornton was Director of the

(EBI) from 2001 to 2015, on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus at Hinxton near

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. She was an organiser of the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) and European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) joint Conference in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

in 2004. Thornton's work is highly interdisciplinary, interfacing with structural biology, bioinformatics, biological chemistry and chemoinformatics, amongst others. She was an early pioneer in

structure validation Macromolecular structure validation is the process of evaluating reliability for 3-dimensional atomic models of large biological molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. These models, which provide 3D coordinates for each atom in the mole ...

for protein crystallography, developing the widely used ProCheck software. Together with Christine Orengo, she introduced the

CATH The CATH Protein Structure Classification database is a free, publicly available online resource that provides information on the evolutionary relationships of protein domains. It was created in the mid-1990s by Professor Christine Orengo and coll ...

classification of protein structure. Her group developed a robust enzyme classification, comparison and annotation tool – the EC-BLAST which calculates similarity between enzymes based on chemical reactions by capturing the bond change(s), reaction centre(s) or structural similarity between them. From 2008 to 2012, she co-ordinated the four-year preparatory phase of the European life sciences data infrastructure

. As of 2013 she remains on the ELIXIR board as one of

EMBL The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

's scientific delegates. Her research has been funded by the Medical Research Council, the

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific re ...

(BBSRC), the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

, and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

Doctoral students and postdocs

Thornton has supervised several

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

and

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

s including Sarah Teichmann and David Jones.

Awards and honours

Thornton was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1999. She became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2000, a foreign associate of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 2003, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2014. Thornton is a supernumerary fellow of

Churchill College, Cambridge Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was establis ...

. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2017. Thornton's nomination for the Royal Society reads Her citation on election to the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

reads: Thornton was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) in 2000 and

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(DBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to bioinformatics. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' named Thornton number 86 of their "Eureka 100" British scientists in 2010. She was awarded the Suffrage Science award in 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornton, Janet 1949 births Living people Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Alumni of King's College London Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Female Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Academics of University College London British bioinformaticians Alumni of the University of Nottingham Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Place of birth missing (living people) National Institute for Medical Research faculty Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the Royal Society Women bioinformaticians Women bioinformaticians People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)