Phil Mullineaux is the Professor for Plant Molecular Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Essex UK, a post he was appointed to in 2004. He is currently on study leave but until last year was Director of Research at the University. Prior to his appointment he was a principal scientist at the John Innes Centre, Norwich UK where in 20 years he rose from postdoctoral researcher to being the Associate Head of the Department of Disease and Stress Biology.  During his time at JIC he was also a member of the UK Government Statutory Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE; 1998- 2002) involved in evaluating risk assessments for the release of GMOs for research and commercial purposes. From 1981-1983, he was a MRC Fellow in Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh and his degrees in Biochemistry are from the University of Wales.  He has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers and articles. He is funded by the UK BBSRC, the EU and private sponsors to carry out both fundamental and applied research, often in collaborative networks of researchers.

His current areas of research are to combine plant physiology, molecular genetics and increasingly, computational biology to identify genes central to the response of plants to environmental challenge in model plants and transfer and modify these genes in crop plant species. These include high light and drought and the impact of these stresses on plant productivity. In addition, the interaction of pathways responding to abiotic and biotic stress is a theme which runs through his current research and how this is coordinated by changes in cellular redox states and the metabolism of reactive oxygen species.  Included in this research is a commitment to develop methods of gene delivery to plants which has involved development of novel vectors for Agrobacterium, the use of geminiviruses as gene delivery platforms and currently on the development of facile GFP-based probes for the detection of hydrogen peroxide in real time in plant tissues.