{"id":81401,"date":"2026-08-27T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?post_type=awards&#038;p=81401"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:11:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:11:00","slug":"dame-janet-thornton-awarded-royal-societys-croonian-medal-and-lecture","status":"publish","type":"awards","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/awards-honours\/dame-janet-thornton-awarded-royal-societys-croonian-medal-and-lecture","title":{"rendered":"Dame Janet Thornton awarded Royal Society\u2019s Croonian Medal and Lecture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dame Janet Thornton has been awarded the Croonian Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society for her pioneering work in protein and structural bioinformatics. The award recognises Thornton\u2019s research on using computational analysis to understand the structure, function, and evolution of proteins. Her group\u2019s research focused on enzymes and the effect of protein-coding variants in disease and ageing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thornton was Director of EMBL\u2019s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) between 2001 and 2015, overseeing the growth of the institute from 160 to over 600 people. She led a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebi.ac.uk\/research\/thornton\/\">small research group at EMBL-EBI<\/a> before retiring in 2024.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Croonian Medal, first awarded in 1738, is an immense honour that I am very proud to receive from the Royal Society,\u201d said Thornton in a statement to the Royal Society. \u201cI had the amazing good fortune to be part of the huge progress over the last 50 years to understand the molecular biology of life, and particularly the structures and functions of our proteins. Yet there are still many aspects of this complex interacting system to be discovered. With the recent improvements in AI methods, applied appropriately and combined with carefully curated accurate data, the next 50 years hold even more promise to understand, predict, and modulate biology <em>in vivo<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/royalsociety.org\/medals-and-prizes\/croonian-lecture\/\">The Croonian Medal and Lecture<\/a> was created by William Croone FRS, one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society, and has been awarded annually since 1738. Professor Edith Heard, EMBL\u2019s former Director General, received the 2025 award for her work as a leading figure in X-chromosome biology.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe recipients of this year\u2019s medals and awards have made exceptional contributions to science and research culture,\u201d said Sir Paul Nurse, President of The Royal Society. \u201cTheir work has helped further our understanding of the world around us and will inspire generations of scientists to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebi.ac.uk\/about\/news\/announcements\/janet-thornton-retires-a-pioneer-in-structural-bioinformatics\/\">Read more about <\/a>Dame Janet Thornton\u2019s illustrious career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The award recognises the central role of big data and bioinformatics in the life sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":81269,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","tags":[80,28,36,19733,35,369],"award-type":[17599],"award-unit":[17615],"award-site":[17613],"class_list":["post-81401","awards","type-awards","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alumni","tag-bioinformatics","tag-embl-ebi","tag-janet-thornton","tag-structural-biology","tag-thornton","award-type-award","award-unit-bioinformatics","award-site-embl-ebi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - 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