Jane Elizabeth Parker (born 1960) is a British scientist who researches the immune responses of plants at the

Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research was founded in Müncheberg, Germany in 1928 as part of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. The founding director, Erwin Baur, initiated breeding programmes with fruits and berries, and basic resear ...

Education and early life

Jane Elizabeth Parker was born in 1960 in Great Britain and completed her undergraduate degree at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...

in applied

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

in 1983. She went on to earn her PhD in 1986 from

Swansea University , former_names=University College of Swansea, University of Wales Swansea , motto= cy, Gweddw crefft heb ei dawn , mottoeng="Technical skill is bereft without culture" , established=1920 – University College of Swansea 1996 – University of Wa ...

protein synthesis Protein biosynthesis (or protein synthesis) is a core biological process, occurring inside Cell (biology), cells, homeostasis, balancing the loss of cellular proteins (via Proteolysis, degradation or Protein targeting, export) through the product ...

in ''

Euglena ''Euglena'' is a genus of Unicellular organism, single cell flagellate eukaryotes. It is the best known and most widely studied member of the class Euglenoidea, a diverse group containing some 54 genera and at least 200 species. Species of ''Eug ...

''.

Career and research

Following her PhD, she was a

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 p ...

at the

. Throughout the 1990s, she worked at the

Sainsbury Laboratory The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP) in Norwich, Norfolk, England, that carries out fundamental biological research and technology development on aspects of plant disease, plant dise ...

at the John Innes Centre in the Norwich Research Park, at

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 See of Norwich, with ...

, England, but left in August 2001, with her husband, Dr.

George Coupland George Michael Coupland FRS (born 20 December 1959, in Dumfries) is a Scottish plant scientist, and Research Scientist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. Education Coupland earned a First Class Honours from Un ...

to take up a post as an independent researcher at

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

Max Planck Institute Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) (1 ...

. In 2002, Parker was awarded a

Sofia Kovalevskaya Award The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award every two years. Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891) was the first major Russian female mathematician, who made important contributions to mathematical analysis, d ...

to continue her research into plant immune responses. She researches how plants defend themselves from disease-causing

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s. Her work involves isolating the genes which trigger innate defence mechanisms and combines genetics with molecular biology to evaluate how plants are able to avoid disease. Her research has discovered that there are multiple layers of defence but that a protein, called EDS1, which combines with other proteins to form complexes, is the initial trigger. The immune response varies depending on whether the complex formed is developed from combining with the protein PAD4 or SAG101 to initiate the response to disease resistance. Since 2009, Parker has been an associate professor at the Institute of Genetics University of Cologne in Germany. In 2013, she was elected a member of the

Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

. She is widely published and has been listed on the annual ISI Web of Knowledge most highly cited scientists for 2015, as published by Thomson Reuters.

Selected publications

The following were noted as the five most important works by Parker, according to Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences, a German scientific research organisation group: * * * * *

Awards and honours

She is listed on

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

' list of the annual ISI Web of Knowledge most highly cited scientists for 2015. She was elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

in 2016 and a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Jane E 1960 births Living people British botanists Alumni of the University of Bradford Alumni of the University of Wales Max Planck Society people Academic staff of the University of Cologne Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization 21st-century British women scientists 20th-century British women scientists British women non-fiction writers Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Fellows of the Royal Society