Professor Jonathan Dallas George Jones FRS is a senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich using molecular and genetic approaches to study disease resistance in plants. He, along with collaborator Jeffery Dangl, proposed the “zig-zag model” for the co-evolution of plant resistance genes and pathogen effectors.[1] He also proposed the “Guard Hypothesis”, which provides a testable explanation for how plants overcome the large number of arms used by pathogens to evoke disease while having only a limited set of plant proteins to defend itself.[2]
He received his Ph.D from Cambridge University in 1980, under the direction of G Dover and R B Flavell, and conducted postdoctoral work at Harvard. Head of Sainsbury Laboratory 1994-7, 2003 – present, and Professor at University of East Anglia 1997- . He has been editor of The Plant Cell and Genome Biology.
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In July 2010, Professor Jones contributed an opinion piece to BBC News Online, outlining his stance on genetically modified (GM) food crops. In the piece, Jones argued that if we are to 'feed the planet without destroying it... we need to use every tool in our toolbox, including GM'.[4]