Dr. Janet Thornton is a world-renowned computational biologist and Director Emeritus of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). After completing her physics undergraduate studies, she earned a PhD in Biophysics and conducted pioneering research at prestigious institutions including Oxford University, Birkbeck College, and University College London. She served as Director of EMBL-EBI from 2001 to 2015, leading the institute's remarkable growth from 160 to over 600 personnel and establishing it as a global leader in bioinformatics infrastructure. Her visionary leadership during this period was instrumental in shaping the modern landscape of biological data management and analysis across Europe and worldwide. Recognized for her exceptional contributions to science, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000 and elevated to Dame Commander in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to bioinformatics.
Dame Janet is widely credited as a foundational pioneer who helped establish the field of bioinformatics through her groundbreaking work in structural bioinformatics. She developed the widely used PROCHECK software for validating protein structures and co-created the influential CATH classification system for protein domains, which has become an essential open-access resource for understanding evolutionary relationships in protein structures. Her leadership was instrumental in launching ELIXIR, the pan-European infrastructure for biological data that has transformed how researchers access and utilize life sciences information across the continent. Her research on protein structure and function has provided critical insights into disease mechanisms and aging processes, with recent work enthusiastically embracing the revolutionary AlphaFold predictions that have made over 200 million protein structures openly available through EMBL-EBI. These contributions have fundamentally shaped how the scientific community approaches protein structure analysis and biological data infrastructure.
As a Senior Scientist at EMBL-EBI, Dame Janet continues to lead innovative research developing robust search, comparison, and annotation tools for enzymes that facilitate quantitative similarity searches between enzyme reactions. Her laboratory's current work focuses on investigating the evolution of enzymes at a mechanistic level, creating knowledge-based approaches that could transform enzyme design for human and planetary health needs. She remains a leading voice in the scientific community through her governance roles in the Royal Society, European Research Council, and as a scientific delegate on the ELIXIR board, where she continues to advocate for open access to biological data. Her enduring legacy includes not only her scientific contributions but also her mentorship of generations of bioinformaticians and her pivotal role in building the international infrastructure that supports modern life sciences research. Dame Janet's work continues to inspire new approaches to understanding protein function and its implications for disease and therapeutic development.
