Science on Sundays talk: Simple plants for engineers

Professor Jim Haseloff, Head of Group Synthetic Biology for engineering plant growth: Department of Plant Sciences

The liverworts are descendants of the earliest land plants. They are characterised by simple forms and genome architectures. Liverwort biology has been a neglected area of plant science, but recent technical advances have accelerated the field, and offer exciting new experimental approaches.

The relative simplicity of genetic networks in liverworts, combined with a growing set of genetic manipulation, culture and microscopy techniques, are set to make these lower plants major new systems for analysing the fundamental mechanisms of plant growth and reprogramming it.

11am & repeated at 2pm in the Classroom at 1 Brookside.