| Citation | Alison Smith is an international leader in the field of plant carbohydrate metabolism. She has been at the forefront of research into the synthesis and degradation of starch and the metabolism of sucrose in plants for two decades. These areas of research have great relevance in the context of food security. Smith's work is distinguished by her use of molecular, genetic and genomic tools to tackle basic issues in plant metabolism and biochemistry. In probing traditional biochemical pathways with molecular tools, Smith's discoveries have led to dramatic new insights into starch metablolism |