Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University

The Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University is located in Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Its aim is to elucidate the regulatory systems underlying plant growth and plant development.Senior research staffSenior research staff include: Professor Ottoline Leyser FRS, DirectorSebastian Ahnert, Gatsby Career Development Fellow at the Sainsbury Laboratory, and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Cavendish LaboratorySiobhan Braybrook, Career Development FellowProfessor Yrjö Helariutta, research group leaderKatja Jaeger, Principal investigatorAlexander Jones, Research Group LeaderProfessor Henrik Jönsson, Associate DirectorJames Locke, Research group leaderElliot Meyerowitz, Inaugural Director and Distinguished AssociateDevin O'Connor, Career Development FellowJerzy Paszkowski, research group leader Sebastian Schornack, Research Group Leader and Royal Society University Research Fellow Phil Wigge, Research Group LeaderHistoryThe Sainsbury Laboratory will house 120 plant scientists studying plant development and diversity in state-of-the-art laboratory facilities. The building was made possible by the award of an £82M grant from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Construction of the 11,000-square metre building, led by Kier Group, began in the private working and research area of the Botanic Garden in February 2008 and was completed in December 2010. The building also provides plant growth facilities and a home for the University Herbarium, which contains over one million pressed and dried plant specimens from around the world, including the great majority of those collected by Charles Darwin on the Beagle Voyage, and scientific research material relating to newly discovered plants from the 18th and 19th centuries.