James Lloyd

Dr. James Lloyd is a Research Fellow at the School of Molecular Sciences at The University of Western Australia, with additional affiliation at the ARC Centre for Plant Energy Biology. Based in Perth, Australia, Dr. Lloyd identifies with They/Them or He/Him pronouns and maintains an active research program focused on genome engineering and molecular plant biology.

Dr. Lloyd earned a BSc (Hons) in Genetics with a year in industry from the University of York in 2009, followed by a PhD in Molecular Plant Genetics from the University of Leeds in 2014. His doctoral research focused on "The characterisation of SMG1 in the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway of Physcomitrella patens." Prior to his current position, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on computational biology of RNA splicing and decay, and epigenomics.

His research program centers on synthetic biology, RNA biology, and epigenetics, with a specific focus on how we can both read and re-write genomes. Dr. Lloyd's work spans multiple plant model systems including Arabidopsis thaliana and Physcomitrium patens (moss), with particular interest in nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, DNA methylation, and plant synthetic gene circuits.

Analysis of Dr. Lloyd's recent publications (2023-2025) reveals a strong focus on plant synthetic biology applications, particularly CRISPR-based genetic circuits and tools for controlling gene expression in plants. His work bridges computational approaches with experimental molecular biology to develop novel plant biotechnology solutions.

• Sainsbury Studentship in Plant Sciences

Dr. Lloyd serves as Chief Investigator on the recently completed project "Development of 'climate-smart' plants with improved nutrient acquisition" (February-December 2024), with Prof. Ryan Lister as CoPI. He is actively engaged in the scientific community through peer review activities for leading journals including Plant Biotechnology Journal, The Plant Journal, Genome Biology, and Current Opinion in Plant Biology.

His research group maintains strong connections with the ARC Centre for Plant Energy Biology and collaborates extensively on plant synthetic biology projects, particularly in developing genetic tools for stable cell reprogramming and creating climate-resilient plant varieties.