Past President
Patrick holds the Chair of Plant Molecular Cell Biology in the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham. He received his PhD in Biology (1986) from the University of Kent at Canterbury in association with the John Innes Centre, Norwich. After postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota and the John Innes Centre, he took up a lectureship in Royal Holloway, University of London (1990), where he was awarded a Personal Chair (1999). While at Royal Holloway he was also Warden of Founder’s Hall (1990/91). He moved to the University of Durham in 2000. In 2010 he became the Head of School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences and recently took up the role of Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Science).
His main research interest is in the structure, function and regulation of the plant cytoskeleton and its potential role in biotechnology and he has been working in this field for the last 30 years. A large focus of his laboratory is plant cell imaging and he recently established the Durham Centre for Bioimaging Technology which is a multidisciplinary centre that includes computer scientists, physicists, mathematicians, chemists as well as biologists with the aim of enhancing research within this field. He has published over a hundred research articles many of which are in high impact journals e.g. Nature journals, Current Biology, PNAS, Plant Cell, Journal of Cell Science, Plant Journal. He has received funding for, and supervised, over 40 postdocs, PhD and MSc students since obtaining his lectureship in 1990.
Since 1983, he has been associated with the Society for Experimental Biology. In 2001 he became a Group Convenor for the Cell Section and then Head of the Cell Section in 2009. In 2013 he was elected as Vice-President of the Society, and President for 2015–2017.
Patrick can be contacted by emailing p.j.hussey@durham.ac.uk.