Biography
Dale Sanders obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Enid MacRobbie. There, he discovered the mechanism of proton-driven ion transport in algal cells that subsequently became a model for understanding how plant nutrients are accumulated. After five years as a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University School of Medicine investigating mechanisms of control of cytosolic pH in fungi, he returned to the UK in 1983 as a lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of York. His research has focussed on the role of ion channels in cellular signal transduction, especially in the area of calcium signaling and on understanding zinc homeostasis in plants. He became Head of Department at York before being appointed as Director of the John Innes Centre (JIC) in 2010. He retired from his position at JIC in 2022 but retains his affiliation with the University of York as a visiting professor. Among numerous awards, Dale Sanders was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2001 and as a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2023. Dale Sanders has served as a Trustee of The New Phytologist Foundation since 2022.