doi.bio/janet_m_thornton

Dame Janet Maureen Thornton [[DBE, FRS FMedSci, FRSC]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FellowoftheRoyalSociety), FMedSci

Biography

Janet Thornton is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the [[European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), part of the [[European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researchers in [[structural bioinformatics], using [computational biology(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_biology) methods to understand [[protein structure and [[function].

Education

Thornton was born on 23 May 1949 and attended [[Bury Grammar School until 1967, where she was head girl. She then graduated with a degree in [[physics from the [[University of Nottingham, before completing a master's degree in [[biophysics at [[King's College London and a [[PhD in [[biophysics at the [[National Institute for Medical Research, [[Mill Hill, London in 1973.

Career

After her PhD, Thornton worked in [[molecular biophysics with [[David Chilton Phillips at the [[University of Oxford. In 1978, she returned to the National Institute for Medical Research, and following that took up a [[Fellowship at [[Birkbeck College, part of the [[University of London. In 1990 she was appointed [[Professor and [[Director of the Biomolecular Structure and Modelling Unit in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at [[University College London and later also appointed to the [[[Bernal Chair](https://www.bbk.

Google Scholar Profile

Janet M Thornton)

Google Scholar

Janet M Thornton Senior Scientist, European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Institute of Bioinformatics (EMBL http://www.ebi.ac.uk/research/thornton PROCHECK: a program to check the stereochemical quality of protein structures RA Laskowski, MW MacArthur, DS Moss, JM Thornton Journal of applied crystallography 26 (2), 283-291, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C Cited by: 26974

The rapid generation of mutation data matrices from protein sequences DT Jones, WR Taylor, JM Thornton Bioinformatics 8 (3), 275-282, 1992 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:d1gkVwhDpl0C Cited by: 7789

LIGPLOT: a program to generate schematic diagrams of protein-ligand interactions AC Wallace, RA Laskowski, JM Thornton Protein engineering, design and selection 8 (2), 127-134, 1995 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC Cited by: 6045

AQUA and PROCHECK-NMR: programs for checking the quality of protein structures solved by NMR RA Laskowski, JAC Rullmann, MW MacArthur, R Kaptein, JM Thornton Journal of biomolecular NMR 8, 477-486, 1996 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:u-x6o8ySG0sC Cited by: 5864

Principles of protein-protein interactions. S Jones, JM Thornton Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93 (1), 13-20, 1996 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:qjMakFHDy7sC Cited by: 3480

CATH–a hierarchic classification of protein domain structures CA Orengo, AD Michie, S Jones, DT Jones, MB Swindells, JM Thornton Structure 5 (8), 1093-1109, 1997 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC Cited by: 3359

Satisfying hydrogen bonding potential in proteins IK McDonald, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 238 (5), 777-793, 1994 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:UeHWp8X0CEIC Cited by: 2457

Stereochemical quality of protein structure coordinates AL Morris, MW MacArthur, EG Hutchinson, JM Thornton Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics 12 (4), 345-364, 1992 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:IjCSPb-OGe4C Cited by: 2081

naccess SJ Hubbard Dept Biohem Mol Biol UCL, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:M0leSnx2MbUC Cited by: 2025

A new approach to protein fold recognition DT Jones, WR Taylort, JM Thornton Nature 358 (6381), 86-89, 1992 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:Tyk-4Ss8FVUC Cited by: 1694

Antibody-antigen interactions: contact analysis and binding site topography RM MacCallum, ACR Martin, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 262 (5), 732-745, 1996 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:0EnyYjriUFMC Cited by: 1476

Main-chain bond lengths and bond angles in protein structures RA Laskowski, DS Moss, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 231 (4), 1049-1067, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:Y0pCki6q_DkC Cited by: 1425

Influence of proline residues on protein conformation MW MacArthur, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 218 (2), 397-412, 1991 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:eQOLeE2rZwMC Cited by: 1424

Helix geometry in proteins DJ Barlow, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 201 (3), 601-619, 1988 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:YsMSGLbcyi4C Cited by: 1349

PROMOTIF—a program to identify and analyze structural motifs in proteins EG Hutchinson, JM Thornton Protein Science 5 (2), 212-220, 1996 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:W7OEmFMy1HYC Cited by: 1303

Ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1 signaling regulates mammalian life span C Selman, JMA Tullet, D Wieser, E Irvine, SJ Lingard, AI Choudhury, … Science 326 (5949), 140-144, 2009 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:5nxA0vEk-isC Cited by: 1253

Metal ions in biological catalysis: from enzyme databases to general principles C Andreini, I Bertini, G Cavallaro, GL Holliday, JM Thornton JBIC Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry 13, 1205-1218, 2008 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:HDshCWvjkbEC Cited by: 1244

A revised set of potentials for β‐turn formation in proteins EG Hutchinson, JM Thornton Protein Science 3 (12), 2207-2216, 1994 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:LkGwnXOMwfcC Cited by: 1218

Analysis and prediction of the different types of β-turn in proteins CM Wilmot, JM Thornton Journal of molecular biology 203 (1), 221-232, 1988 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:WF5omc3nYNoC Cited by: 1200

Diversity of protein–protein interactions IMA Nooren, JM Thornton The EMBO journal 22 (14), 3486-3492, 2003 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:8k81kl-MbHgC Cited by: 1189

Google Scholar

naccess SJ Hubbard Dept Biohem Mol Biol UCL, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:M0leSnx2MbUC Cited by: 2025

Google Scholar

naccess SJ Hubbard Dept Biohem Mol Biol UCL, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:M0leSnx2MbUC Cited by: 2025

Google Scholar

Janet M Thornton

Senior Scientist, European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Institute of Bioinformatics (EMBL

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/research/thornton

PROCHECK: a program to check the stereochemical quality of protein structures RA Laskowski, MW MacArthur, DS Moss, JM Thornton Journal of applied crystallography 26 (2), 283-291, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C

naccess SJ Hubbard Dept Biohem Mol Biol UCL, 1993 Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?viewop=viewcitation&hl=en&user=h1YCYgEAAAAJ&citationforview=h1YCYgEAAAAJ:M0leSnx2MbUC

Youtube Videos

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Wikipedia

Janet Thornton

Summary: Dame Janet Maureen Thornton, (born 23 May 1949) is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researchers in structural bioinformatics, using computational methods to understand protein structure and function. She served as director of the EBI from October 2001 to June 2015, and played a key role in ELIXIR.

URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Thornton

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Content: Dame Janet Maureen Thornton, (born 23 May 1949) is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researchers in structural bioinformatics, using computational methods to understand protein structure and function. She served as director of the EBI from October 2001 to June 2015, and played a key role in ELIXIR.

Education Thornton attended Bury Grammar School until 1967, where she was head girl. After graduating in physics from the University of Nottingham, Thornton completed a master's degree in biophysics at King's College London, and a PhD in biophysics at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London in 1973.

Career and research After her PhD, Thornton worked in molecular biophysics with David Chilton Phillips at the University of Oxford. In 1978, she returned to the National Institute for Medical Research, and following that took up to a Fellowship at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London. In 1990 she was appointed Professor and Director of the Biomolecular Structure and Modeling Unit in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University College London and later also was appointed to the Bernal Chair in the Crystallography Department at Birkbeck College. Thornton was Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) from 2001 to 2015, on the Wellcome Genome Campus at Hinxton near Cambridge. She was an organiser of the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) and European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) joint Conference in Glasgow in 2004. Thornton's work is highly interdisciplinary, interfacing with structural biology, bioinformatics, biological chemistry and chemoinformatics, amongst others. She was an early pioneer in structure validation for protein crystallography, developing the widely used ProCheck software. Together with Christine Orengo, she introduced the CATH classification of protein structure. Her group developed a robust enzyme classification, comparison and annotation tool – the EC-BLAST which calculates similarity between enzymes based on chemical reactions by capturing the bond change(s), reaction centre(s) or structural similarity between them. From 2008 to 2012, she co-ordinated the four-year preparatory phase of the European life sciences data infrastructure ELIXIR. As of 2013 she remains on the ELIXIR board as one of EMBL's scientific delegates. Her research has been funded by the Medical Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Wellcome Trust, and the European Union.

Doctoral students and postdocs Thornton has supervised several PhD and postdoctoral researchers including Sarah Teichmann and David Jones.

Awards and honours

Thornton was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1999. She became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2000, a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2003, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2014. Thornton is a supernumerary fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2017. Thornton's nomination for the Royal Society reads Janet Thornton is distinguished for her contribution to understanding protein three-dimensional structure: her perceptive comparative studies have led to the development of algorithms that are used to analyse and make predictions of supersecondary and tertiary structure. In the 1970s at Oxford (with M J Sternberg) she established clear and useful rules for the handedness of B-a-B units and demonstrated valid methods for prediction of the ordering of strands in B-sheets. At Birkbeck she developed this work to define families of conformations in B-hairpins and aB-links where the structures had previously been assumed at random. She has made the most comprehensive and useful analyses of tertiary interactions of protein sidechains, leading to an atlas that is valuable for protein and ligand design. The atlas is used widely in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry. At University College she has developed studies of sidechain conformation and stereochemistry into a procedure, PROCHECK, for evaluating the quality of experimentally defined protein structures: this is used widely to check protein structures. She has presented a method, known as threading, which gives strong evidence about tertiary structure for a protein sequence which is not obviously homologous to any other known structure. Her citation on election to the Academy of Medical Sciences reads: Dame Janet Thornton is Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute and is a world leader in bioinformatics. She has contributed significantly to medical science by increasing our fundamental understanding of the structure of proteins and how they contribute to disease and ageing. The tools and databases she has developed are used worldwide for basic research, in academia and also in pharmaceutical companies. As Director of the EBI, she has been responsible for strategic developments related to the impact of the life sciences data on medical science. She is actively pursuing the challenge of how to join up biological and medical data in the UK and building tools which will facilitate the exploitation of these data for research and in the clinic. Thornton was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to bioinformatics. The Times named Thornton number 86 of their "Eureka 100" British scientists in 2010. She was awarded the Suffrage Science award in 2011.

== References ==

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