Our work is focussed on delivering sustainability and food security from agriculture. We research crop plants and farm animals, studying their evolution and organization at the DNA to genome levels: large-scale processes with chromosomes, polyploidy and DNA sequence. Microscopy, image processing, bioinformatics, in situ hybridization, molecular (epi)genetics and systems biology lets us explore and exploit fundamental processes. We study environmental outcomes of agriculture, assessing risks and consequences, including economic and social impacts. We use our knowledge to breed crops with better genetics giving impact with increased sustainability, reliability and food security.

The group includes PIs, postdoctoral, PhD & project researchers, sabbatical visitors and a part time technician. Our lab is involved in reviewing and editing many journals, including Annals of Botany, Genome, Plant Reproduction and Theoretical and Applied Genetics. We also advise and review national (including REF sub-panel) and international laboratories and programmes. We give undergraduate and advanced courses in Leicester and internationally. Pat Heslop-Harrison is associated with the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) programme of the European Parliament.

We have an active publication programme. Titles of recent publications are listed here, or available from Pubmed. www.MolCyt.org contains abstracts and links from 2012 while publications from earlier are here (including at the John Innes Centre JIC, Norwich and Plant Breeding Institute PBI, Cambridge). Information about talks, interviews and other outputs is here.