It is with profound sadness that we mark the passing of Dr James P. B. Lloyd, colleague, scientist, educator, mentor and friend.

James was a geneticist, plant scientist and synthetic biologist in the School of Molecular Sciences at The University of Western Australia and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space. He combined intellectual rigour with rare inventiveness and a deep commitment to building scientific communities. He believed that science progressed best when ideas, opportunities and people were connected, and he spent much of his career making those connections possible.

Originally from the United Kingdom, James studied Genetics at the University of York, including a year in industry and a final-year research project with Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser. In 2009, he was awarded a Sainsbury Studentship in Plant Sciences to undertake his PhD with Professor Brendan Davies at the University of Leeds, investigating nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in plants. In 2014, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on RNA splicing and decay, epigenomics and computational biology, developing the programming and analytical skills that would become central to his later research.

James joined UWA in January 2018 as a Research Associate in Professor Ryan Lister’s group. At UWA, James’ work increasingly brought together fundamental RNA biology, genetics and epigenetics with the emerging possibilities of engineering biology. He led the development of some of the world’s first synthetic gene circuits for plants, including memory circuits that use DNA recombinases to make permanent changes to DNA and produce a desired response to an input. This work opened new ways of thinking about how plants might be programmed for agriculture, sustainability, biotechnology and, ultimately, life beyond Earth. His flagship research included the 2022 paper ‘Synthetic memory circuits for stable cell reprogramming in plants’, followed by influential work on plant synthetic gene circuits and gene-expression control which helped to set new research directions across the globe.

Within Plants for Space, James applied this technology to the challenge of turning plants into bio-factories capable of producing medicines and materials on demand during long periods away from Earth. More recently, he and Professor Ryan Lister collaborated on the Plant Artificial Chromosome project, funded by the United Kingdom’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, with the ambition of building the world’s first synthetic plant chromosome constructed from the bottom-up.

In recognition of his independent research program and potential, James was awarded the Clifford Bradley Robertson and Gwendoline Florence Robertson Research Fellowship in the School of Molecular Sciences before being awarded a highly prestigious and competitive GRDC Mid-Career Fellowship in October 2025. Through that fellowship, he led and mentored his own group of talented researchers. 
His achievements were recognised beyond the laboratory. In 2025, James was named a WA Young Tall Poppy, an honour that reflected not only the quality of his science but also his commitment to public engagement. He shared the possibilities of plant and space science with audiences of all ages, wrote for Live Science and Space.com, participated in public panels, and even brought his research to Perth’s Fringe World Festival with characteristic humour.

However, no matter the extent of the impact of his work, James would likely have been more pleased to be remembered for the people he helped than the papers he published.
One of his most enduring legacies was the establishment of the Synthetic Biology WA Network, known as SWAN. What began as a local effort to connect a scattered group of researchers grew into Synthetic Biology Australasia, spanning every Australian state and New Zealand. Through this initiative, James created friendships, collaborations, research projects, student opportunities and careers. Many researchers across Australasia can trace meaningful professional opportunities back to a conversation, introduction or piece of encouragement that began with James.

As an educator and mentor, he brought the same energy to students and early-career researchers that he brought to science. He supervised, taught and guided young scientists with patience, honesty and genuine enthusiasm. He believed students should not simply learn science but become scientists, and he invested generously in helping them achieve that goal.

Those who worked alongside James quickly discovered that he possessed a wonderfully distinctive combination of brilliance, determination and stubbornness. He was never afraid to challenge accepted wisdom, question authority or pursue an idea that others thought unlikely to succeed. Sometimes this made life interesting. More often than not, it made the science better.

James also understood something that many academics forget: science is a profoundly human endeavour. Conferences, workshops, grant applications and collaborations were never simply administrative necessities to him. They were opportunities to create communities. He delighted in connecting people who should know one another and finding possibilities where others saw silos. He approached his career with intensity, conviction and humour. The rest of us often spent months discovering why a problem was difficult; James preferred to begin by assuming it could be solved and then work backwards. Frequently, he was right.

Before his death, James composed a message that Professor Ryan Lister and James’s team plan to encode within an intron of a fluorescent reporter gene in the synthetic plant chromosome on which they worked together. Each time that chromosome produces fluorescence, the plant will quite literally have read out James’s message. It is a profoundly fitting legacy for a scientist who devoted his imagination to teaching plants new ways to remember, respond and communicate.

The School of Molecular Sciences, Plants for Space, the broader synthetic biology community, and countless colleagues, collaborators and students are better because James was part of them. His scientific contributions will continue through his publications, discoveries and the research programmes he helped create. His influence will continue through the students and researchers he mentored. His legacy will continue through the communities he built, and through the flash of a plant carrying his final message.

Above all, James will be remembered as a gifted scientist, a generous colleague and a deeply valued friend. We are grateful for the time we shared with him, and we will miss him enormously. James leaves in our care his wife of 14 years, Asher Floyd. Asher also joined UWA in 2018 and is part of the Australian Centre for Geomechanics. She is a passionate advocate for equity and for improving the working lives of those on campus with forgotten or invisible needs.

A Celebration of Life will be held in the near future to allow colleagues, collaborators, students and friends from across the University and community to come together, and honour James’s achievements and legacy, the details of which will be circulated.