University Events Calendar
17 November, 2008

Date/Time: Monday, 17 November 2008, 4:00 pm
Location: Plant Research Centre Auditorium, Waite Campus
Cost: FREE

School of Agriculture, Food & Wine Seminar Series: The Harold Woolhouse Lecture 2008

Speaker: Professor Deri Tomos, Professor of Physiological Biochemistry, Bangor University (UK)

Plants are (very) high pressure micro-machines with the individual cells acting as mechanical components. The cells also behave as an array of spatially distinct chemical factories processing both organic and inorganic solutes. Mechanics and biochemistry are interdependent and the familiar behaviour of crop and other plants is sum of this activity. Inserting a fine glass microcapillary into individual plant cells can be the first step to measuring a wide range of parameters at the elemental resolution of the individual cell. Examples of both mechanical (movement, expansion) and molecular (sugar metabolism) processes will be discussed.

The inaugural Harold Woolhouse Lecture is named in honour of the former Director of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute. Professor Woolhouse finished his PhD at the University of Adelaide before spending much of his early career (during the 1960s and 1970s) researching heavy metals and senescence. Between 1980 and 1989, Professor Woolhouse developed and directed the world class plant biology research facility, the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, United Kingdom. In 1990, he became Director of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute and was responsible for the co-location of the South Australian Research and Development Institute and Primary Industries and Resources South Australia on the Waite Campus. He also masterminded the merging of Roseworthy Agricultural College with the University of Adelaide. He left Adelaide in August 1995 due to ill health and passed away in June 1996.

Contact: Dr Amanda Able (email), School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide, Business: +61 8 8303 7245