The Fenner Medal recognises outstanding contributions to science by the late Professor Frank J Fenner AC MBE FAA FRS. Its purpose is to recognise outstanding research in biology (excluding the biomedical sciences) by researchers up to 10 years post-PhD in the calendar year of nomination, except in the case of significant interruptions to a research career.

The write up from the AAS announcement:

"Plants have spent hundreds of millions of years evolving sophisticated ways of sensing danger and responding to it, communicating across their own cells to make decisions about survival. 

Understanding how plants manage water stress at the cellular level is part of engineering crops that can survive in a hotter, drier world. 

Dr Kai Chan from the Australian National University is leading breakthroughs in our understanding of plant cellular communication during environmental stresses, such as drought and intense sunlight. 

He specifically focuses on chloroplasts, the ‘solar panels’ of plants responsible for converting sunlight to chemical energy.  

Dr Chan identified how sensor proteins in chloroplasts can detect when a plant is under stress and in response generate a chemical signal that sends a message to the rest of the plant cell.  

This discovery revealed chloroplasts as active participants in a plant’s stress response by connecting with plant hormones and other cellular communication pathways to control stomata, the microscopic pores on leaf surfaces through which plants breathe and lose water. 

Dr Chan is now investigating how chloroplasts function as stress sensors across different types of cells within a plant leaf. He is also working in collaboration with the local Ngambri-Kamberri-Walgalu custodian Paul Girrawah House to understand the molecular basis of heat resilience in Australian native plants."