Graham is a wheat geneticist. He proposed and developed the concept of Synteny, showing how it could be used to study the cereal genome, and consequently, characterise genes for desirable traits. Graham's Synteny concept has since been exploited widely in genomic research across the plant, animal and microbial kingdoms.
Graham established and led collaborative wheat programmes across UK institutes and universities, leading to a step change increase in tools and resources for wheat breeding. Exploiting these tools along with Synteny, Graham elucidated the mechanism by which the major global crop, polyploid wheat (possessing multiple genomes), preserves fertility during meiosis by behaving genetically as a diploid. Graham showed that polyploid stabilisation and a doubling of wheat grain number resulted from an existing meiotic gene duplicating, diverging and acquiring novel functions, an event of extraordinary value to agriculture, given that wheat feeds 4.5 billion people.
Graham was awarded the 1998 Royal Society Darwin Medal for his work on Synteny, and the 2018 Rank Nutrition Prize for his research on Synteny and polyploidy, and contributions to wheat breeding.
Professional position
- Director, John Innes Centre
Subject groups
- Microbiology, immunology and developmental biology
Cytogenetics, Genetics (excluding population genetics)
Awards
Darwin Medal
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Darwin Medal
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