After postdoctoral research at Harvard and at a biotechnology company, Jonathan Jones (JJ) became Group Leader in 1988 at The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) in Norwich, UK, and is a Professor at the University of East Anglia. He investigates plant immunity to disease. His team isolated and characterised many Resistance (R) genes that encode immune receptors and revealed key insights into plant immune-receptor mechanisms. JJ pioneered genomics methods to accelerate R-gene cloning and is a strong advocate for using immunereceptor genes from crop relatives to replace crop-protection agrochemicals. JJ also co-founded Norfolk Plant Sciences, a spin-out biotechnology company aiming to commercialise anthocyanin-rich purple tomatoes.