PUBLICATIONS

Professor Jane Plant CBE (DSc) - Chief Scientist of the British Geological Survey

Oration by SJ Gurman

One of the problems affecting science at present is over-specialization, with scientists concentrating on their own particular interests: "you in your small corner, and I in mine" as the 19th century hymn writer Susan Warner put it. It takes a really first rate scientist to branch out, to see that their expertise can be applied in fields widely different from their main interest. Jane Plant is such a scientist. She is a geochemist with particular expertise in baseline geochemical mapping, plotting the occurrence of trace elements across the U.K. and elsewhere. This work developed into studies of the effects of both natural and manmade pollutants on health and, most recently, into major work on the environmental and dietary contributions to the occurrence of common cancers.

Jane Lunn, as she then was, graduated with a B. Sc. in Geology from the University of Liverpool. She joined the British Geological Survey as a Scientific Officer (which is about as lowly a position as a scientist can hold there) in the Atomic Energy Division. She completed a Ph. D. at this University in 1977 and was promoted Principal Scientific Officer in the same year. She has continued to work for the British Geological Survey ever since, and has been Chief Scientist and a Director of the Survey since 2000.

As a member of the Geochemical Division of the Survey, Jane Plant developed the BGS Geochemical Baseline of the Environment programme, which is widely acknowledged to be the best such database in the world. This programme maps the distribution of many different chemicals over the land surface of the U.K. and permits the study of their interactions using geographical information systems and other digital methods. She developed the methods used to systematically sample and analyse sediment, soil and water samples and also the first quality-control systems for such data. Using the expertise gained in this enormous programme of work, she and her team have worked on problems of human health relating to the presence of trace elements in both Africa and Asia. In particular, their investigations of some severe health problems in Bangladesh tracked the source to the high levels of arsenic in water drawn from deep wells there. Using maps of disease distribution, they also identified the cause of a particularly bad form of arthritis in China as a deficiency in selenium. Many developing countries are liable to trace element toxicities and deficiencies because of local geological and socio-economic conditions. The expertise of the BGS team has been, and continues to be, of major importance in reducing the impact of these conditions on the health of the local people.

In this country, Jane Plant's particular expertise has led to the award of a CBE, for services to Earth Science, and membership of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. In 1999 she became a Freeman of the City of London and a member of the Company of Water Conservators, a Livery Company of the City. In 1999 she was also awarded the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award for her contributions to geochemical modelling.

But there is another side to the work of Jane Plant. Some twenty years ago she contracted breast cancer, which is unfortunately a common enough occurrence these days. The cancer recurred five times over a period of some six years. She endured years of operations and radiotherapy, but the cancer kept recurring. Eventually she came to believe that environmental, and particularly dietary, factors are major causative agents in breast and other cancers. In the study of diseases such as cancer, where the problem is extremely complex, many causes may operate and we look at correlations between factors. With time, a definite cause may be established on the basis of these correlations. Jane Plant has a great deal of experience in geochemistry and the impact of the environment on health. She is expert in the analysis of data, in particular in the use of maps of the distribution of trace elements and also of diseases. The evidence for her view of cancer is presented clearly and in detail in her two best-selling books on the subject. The correlations between the incidence of breast and prostate cancer, dietary and environmental factors are clear, and supported by recent research from Oxford and Cornell Universities. The causative factor is not yet identified, although other research, again from Sir Richard Peto's group at Oxford, suggests that it may well be endocrine disturbing chemicals, such as dioxins, as suggested by Jane Plant.

We honour today a geochemist who has shown that good scientific knowledge can be applied far beyond the narrow confines of a particular discipline, and applied for the good of many, many people who have never heard of the British Geological Survey. Mr Chancellor, on the recommendation of the Senate and Council, I present Jane Plant that you may confer on her the Honorary degree of Doctor of Science.