University Events Calendar
3 August, 2009

Date/Time: Monday, 3 August 2009, 4:00 pm
Location: Plant Research Centre Auditorium, Waite Campus
Cost: FREE
More information: Visit website

School of Agriculture, Food & Wine Seminar Series: The Harold Woolhouse Lecture 2009

Speaker: Professor John Bowman, ARC Federation Fellow, Monash University/University of California Davis

As more plant genome sequences become available, researchers are increasingly using comparative genomics to address some of the major questions in plant biology. Professor John Bowman leads a team of researchers who are interested in answering the question of how a single plant cell develops into a multicellular embryo with specific tissue and organ patterns. The title of the 2009 Harold Woolhouse lecture will be `Evolution of patterning genes in land plants'. In particular, Professor Bowman has investigated the history of genes involved in establishing leaf polarity in the model plant Arabidopsis. Expression and functional studies in early diverging lineages of land plants provide clues as to ancestral functions, and thus to the evolution of land plant morphology. Professor Bowman will discuss how the ancestral roles of patterning genes may lie in interactions with environmental parameters critical in the transition from an aquatic algal ancestor to a land plant.

The 2nd 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