Nigel Halford is a Principal Research Scientist at Rothamsted Research, the UK’s largest and oldest crop and agricultural research centre. He is a member of the Designing Future Wheat programme and the Plant Sciences Department. His research programme concerns the genetics of metabolic regulation in crop plants, how plant metabolism is affected by environmental stress and crop management, and how it can be manipulated to improve crop yield, quality, and food safety. A major strategic application of this work is reducing the potential for acrylamide formation in wheat, potato and rye products. Nigel is a Visiting Professor at Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Special Professor at the University of Nottingham.