The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP) in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, that carries out fundamental biological research and technology development on aspects of

plant disease Plant pathology (also phytopathology) is the scientific study of diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomyc ...

plant disease resistance Plant disease resistance protects plants from pathogens in two ways: by pre-formed structures and chemicals, and by infection-induced responses of the immune system. Relative to a susceptible plant, disease resistance is the reduction of pathoge ...

and microbial symbiosis in plants. It was founded in 1987.

Research

Training

TSL provides a training environment with the intention of preparing post-graduate students, post-doctoral scientists and early career project leaders to excel in their careers. This includes training from the expert technology groups in

plant tissue culture Plant tissue culture is a collection of techniques used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues or organs under sterile conditions on a nutrient culture medium of known composition. It is widely used to produce clones of a plant in a method known ...

and

transformation Transformation may refer to: Science and mathematics In biology and medicine * Metamorphosis, the biological process of changing physical form after birth or hatching * Malignant transformation, the process of cells becoming cancerous * Tran ...

, bioinformatics and

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

, and

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

as well as mentoring from established scientists.

Facilities

TSL provides its researchers access to compute clusters, mass spectrometers, confocal high content screening microscopy and plant growth and transformation facilities.

Technology development

The four core technology teams of TSL develop new technologies to enhance TSL research and provide direct expert support and guidance to the other groups of TSL. *

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 combin ...

– D
Dan MacLean
*

Proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

�
Dr Frank Menke
*

Synthetic Biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

�
Mark Youles
*

Tissue Culture Tissue culture is the growth of tissues or cells in an artificial medium separate from the parent organism. This technique is also called micropropagation. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-solid, or solid growth medium, su ...

and

Transformation Transformation may refer to: Science and mathematics In biology and medicine * Metamorphosis, the biological process of changing physical form after birth or hatching * Malignant transformation, the process of cells becoming cancerous * Tran ...

�
Matthew Smoker

Notable people

A number of scientists have worked at TSL, including; *

David Baulcombe Sir David Charles Baulcombe One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 1952) is a British plant scientist and geneticist. he is a Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Profe ...

Jonathan D. G. Jones Jonathan Dallas George Jones (born 14 July 1954) is a senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory and a professor at the University of East Anglia using molecular and genetic approaches to study disease resistance in plants. Education Jones ...

Martin Parniske Martin Parniske is a German biologist with a specialisation in genetics, microbiology and biochemistry. He is university professor and head of the Institute of Genetics at the Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Parn ...

Sophien Kamoun Sophien Kamoun (born 8 December 1965) is a Tunisian biologist. He is a senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory and professor of biology at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Kamoun is known for contributions to our understanding of plant di ...

* Nick Talbot

Funding

The

Gatsby Charitable Foundation The Gatsby Charitable Foundation is an endowed grant-making trust, based in London, founded by David Sainsbury in 1967. The organisation is one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, set up to provide funding for charitable causes. Although t ...

is a core funder of The Sainsbury Laboratory in addition to The University of East Anglia and a BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grant in Plant Health (in partnership with the John Innes Centre). The remainder of funds are sourced from competitive BBSRC and

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientif ...

grants, charitable and philanthropic donations and, for some research programmes, commercial companies.TSL.ac.uk – Funding
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References

External links

Official web site

Norwich Research Park

Gatsby Charitable Foundation

Two Blades Foundation
{{authority control Biological research institutes in the United Kingdom Biotechnology in the United Kingdom Botanical research institutes Research institutes in Norfolk