Julie E. Gray

Julie E. Gray is a British biologist who is Professor of Plant Cell Signalling at the University of Sheffield. Her research looks to address global security risks, including drought resistance of staple crops. Gray was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2021.

Gray completed her doctorate at the University of Nottingham. She moved to the University of Melbourne as a Research Fellow, where she spent a year before returning to the University of Nottingham. Her research considered how flowers prevent self-pollination.^[1]

Gray joined the University of Sheffield as a University Research Fellow in 1993. She was promoted to Professor in 2008, and established their Institute for Sustainable Food.^[2] Gray works in plant cell signalling. Her early worked looked at the molecular pathways that allow plant stomata to open and close, using molecular biology and the fossil record.^[3] Stomata are also known as guard cells – tiny pores that are responsible for gas exchange (e.g. absorption of carbon dioxide and release of oxygen). Gray demonstrated that the genes that regulate stomata impact crop yields.^[4][5]

Gray looks to identify strategies that help agriculture exist in a changing climate. She studies variations in plant stomata (alleles) that have a negative impact on crop yields. In Latin America, 80% of bean crop yields can be lost to seasonal droughts. Gray demonstrated that manipulating the density and size of bean stomata can modify the water use efficiency, and save up to 4.5 billion litres of water a year.^[6] The Pod Yield Project investigated soy and tepary beans. She developed a strategy to improve rice yields under abiotic stresses, which was awarded a Newton Prize in 2017.^[7] Alongside beans, Gray studied how to make rice plants more resilient to climate change.^[4]

In 2021, Gray was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization.^[8][9]

• Lígia T Bertolino; Robert S Caine; Julie E Gray (6 March 2019). "Impact of Stomatal Density and Morphology on Water-Use Efficiency in a Changing World". Frontiers in Plant Science. 10: 225. Bibcode:2019FrPS...10..225B. doi:10.3389/FPLS.2019.00225. ISSN 1664-462X. PMC 6414756. PMID 30894867. Wikidata Q64056778.
• Robert S Caine; Xiaojia Yin; Jennifer Sloan; et al. (24 July 2018). "Rice with reduced stomatal density conserves water and has improved drought tolerance under future climate conditions". New Phytologist. 221 (1): 371–384. doi:10.1111/NPH.15344. ISSN 0028-646X. PMC 6492113. PMID 30043395. Wikidata Q57174956.
• Julie E. Gray; Geoff H. Holroyd; Frederique M. van der Lee; Ahmad R. Bahrami; Peter C. Sijmons; F. Ian Woodward; Wolfgang Schuch; Alistair M. Hetherington (1 December 2000). "The HIC signalling pathway links CO2 perception to stomatal development". Nature. 408 (6813): 713–716. doi:10.1038/35047071. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 11130071. Wikidata Q47650133.