Global Council for Innovation in Rapeseed and Canola
Members' Directory
Last name :
WELLS
First name :
Rachel
Entrance year :
2025
Occupation :
Senior scientist
Address :
Department of Crop Genetics,
Norwich Research Park,
Colney Lane,
NR4 7UH Norwich / United Kingdom
Main fields of interest :
- Seeds, genetics
- Crop protection
Professional experience : Rachel research focuses on plant molecular biology, Brassica genetics and genomics, with specific interest in the application of techniques and provision of materials to the plant breeding industry. She became a Senior Scientist at JIC in 2013 and Project Manager for the £4.3M BBSRC sLoLa BRAVO in 2017. As a Principal Investigator at JIC (2021), her science comprises two key areas of interest, Brassica-Pest Interactions and Understanding Growth and Developmental Transitions.
The Wells group uses captive colonies of cabbage stem flea beetle, to study insect development and genetics. Controlled and field screens in Brassica and related species such as Sinapis alba are used to look at plant-pest interactions and determine mechanisms associated with pest resistance. She collaborates with the University of Hertfordshire on disease resistance.
Using environmental perturbation and gene network models for floral timing and morphology, the group also works to understand how genetic variation and environment impact crop phenotype.
Rachel was UK Brassica Research Community elected representative (2018-2021) and sat as a board member of the Oilseed Rape Genetic Improvement Network (OREGIN) (2014-2024). She has served as an Associate Editor for Plant Cell Reports and Oil Crop Science from 2016. She became a Trustee, Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology in 2023.
Rachel was awarded an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of East Anglia in 2024.
Education : Rachel completed a degree at the University of East Anglia in Molecular Biology and Genetics (1997-2000) before continuing to study for an MSc in Plant Breeding and Biotechnology (2001-2002). She completed an Industrial CASE PhD studentship at the John Innes Centre with Monsanto on oilseed rape canopy architecture (2003-2006). In 2022 she qualified as a PRINCE2- foundation practioner in project management.
Selected publications : Muthayil Ali A.; Gimenez Molina L., Crocoll C., Qi A., Halkier BA., Stotz HU., Wells R. (2026) Characterisation of gene expression markers and glucosinolates during discrete infection stages of Pyrenopeziza brassicae in Brassica napus. bioRxiv 2026.07. 15.736298
Kristianingsih R., Calderwood A., Sidhu GS., Woodhouse S., Woolfenden H., Kurup S., Wells R., Morris RJ. (2026) A Bayesian approach for identifying similar transcript dynamics using curve registration. bioRxiv 2026.04. 26.720911
Sidhu GS., Burrows S., Woolfenden H., Wells R., Morris RJ. (2025) Network analysis of flowering time genes suggests regulatory changes among SOC1 orthologues in response to cold in Brassica napus. bioRxiv 2025.12. 16.694548 Journal of Experimental Botany (under revision)
Woolfenden H., Wells R., Morris RJ. (2026) The degree of subgenome expression bias in B. napus changes between cultivars, tissues and across time. bioRxiv 2026.06. 01.728460 Plant Journal (under revision)
Rockenbach KC., Zanini SF., Tidy AC., Morris RJ., Wells R., Golicz AA. (2026) A deep learning model captures position-specific preferences of plant regulatory sequences and suggests genes under complex regulation. Plant Physiology, kiag473
Brock RE., Courtney C., Penfield S., Wells R. (2026) Larval antibiosis to cabbage stem flea beetle (Psylliodes chrysocephala) is absent within oilseed rape (Brassica napus) Pest Management Scienc,e 10.1002/ps.70808
Dieudonné S., Kristianingsih R., Hallet S., Jesson B., Vidal V., Wells R., Morris RJ., Besnard F. (2026) Natural variation in Arabidopsis uncouples leaf and flower development and reveals massive transcriptomic heterochrony. Journal of Experimental Botany, 77(8):2328–2348,
Tidy AC., Siles L., Jacott C., Wells R., Kurup S., Wilson ZA. (2025). Large scale phenotyping on the effect of heat and cold stress on Brassica napus during floral development. Plant Stress, 100957.
Woolfenden H., Siles L., Vickers M., Steuernagel B., Morris R.J., Wells R., Kurup S. (2025) A dataset of tissue-specific gene expression dynamics during seed development in Brassica. Sci Data 12, 800.
Warner S., O’Neill CM., Doherty R., Wells R., Penfield S. (2024) Adaptation to reductions in chilling availability using variation in PLANT HOMOLOGOUS TO PARAFIBROMIN in Brassica napus. Frontiers in Plants Science 15, 1481282.
Jones, D. M., Hepworth, J., Wells, R., Pullen, N., Trick, M., & Morris, R. J. (2024). A transcriptomic time-series reveals differing trajectories during pre-floral developme
