Innovator of the year

Professor George Lomonossoff has won “Most Promising Innovator” and the overall “Innovator of the Year” prize at this year’s national BBSRC Innovator of the Year Awards, for his work with Dr Frank Sainsbury on the development of a system for the rapid production of vaccines and pharmaceutical proteins in plants.

The technology allows plants to be used as mini factories, manufacturing beneficial proteins that can be used for medicinal and biotechnology purposes. The technique is faster than current methods and so it offers an extremely effective way of creating vaccines. His work is already being used by Medicago, a Canadian biotechnology company, to develop a vaccine for the H5N1 avian influenza virus. It has also been used by other research groups at JIC and in other laboratories to help understand many aspects of fundamental plant biology and to rapidly evaluate new vaccines for application in humans and animals.

Professor Lomonossoff of the John Innes Centre, which receives strategic funding from BBSRC, and former JIC PhD student Dr Frank Sainsbury, of Laval University in Canada, received their prize and trophy from Business Secretary, Vince Cable, who spoke at the final in London last night.

Dr Cable said: “I would like to congratulate the winners on their success. Their innovative ideas highlight the vital role that scientific knowledge plays in driving growth in important sectors like healthcare, food, and pharmaceuticals. “The UK is a world leader in the biosciences and it is vital that we capitalise on this strength to deliver the maximum social and economic benefit. All of the finalists have gone to impressive lengths to ensure that the impacts of their research are felt well beyond the scientific community and this is truly worth celebrating.”