David Baulcombe established his first research group at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge. In 1988 he joined the Sainsbury Laboratory and was the Head of Laboratory from 1990-1993 and 1999-2003. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

David Baulcombe’s main interests are related to viruses. He pioneered genetic engineering of virus resistance in plants and has characterised genes conferring resistance against virus disease. His group have characterised an RNA-based surveillance system that normally protects the cell against viruses and the genome against disruption by mobile elements of DNA. Using genetic and molecular approaches his laboratory has identified proteins and RNA species that play a role in this RNA silencing system. The Baulcombe group have also shown that viruses encode counter-defense proteins that suppress RNA silencing. A key discovery was the short RNAs that cause the silencing protection mechanisms to be specifically targeted against the invading virus or DNA. David Baulcombe’s work in this area has emphasised the importance of plants as model systems for basic biology because his findings are relevant to RNA interference in animals.