John Innes Centre

National Science and Engineering Week at the Norwich BioScience Institutes

March 2009

March 6th sees the start of The British Science Association’s National Science and Engineering Week, and as part of this the John Innes Centre and the Institute of Food Research are hosting an interactive exhibition at The Forum in Norwich celebrating the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his most famous work, On the Origin of Species.  They will also be showcasing the work of their young scientists, giving the chance to hear about the latest work on topics such as antibiotics and how our gut protects us from invasion.

‘Darwin Today’ was launched by Research Councils UK to bring across how Darwin is still influencing today’s scientific research.  For example, the exhibition shows how we use Darwin’s ideas in breeding new crops, in designing robots that can evolve and even in questioning what life might be like on other planets.  Darwin Today also encourages people to consider the evolution of language, ideas and social structures as well as phenomena such as mass extinctions, biodiversity and the rise of ‘superbugs’ and new diseases.   For younger visitors, Shelley the Tortoise and Bill the Finch introduce Darwin’s work interactively by exploring fossils and the natural world.

Darwin Today was developed by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).  Norwich’s Institute of Food Research and John Innes Centre are institutes of the BBSRC.  The exhibition will be officially opened by Dr Ian Gibson MP at a reception and private viewing on Monday 9th March at 18:00.

Following the official opening, the IFR is hosting an open lecture at the Assembly House, as part of National Science and Engineering Week.  The Tom Gorsuch Lecture will be given by David Spiegelhalter OBE, on “Why is it so difficult to understand uncertainty and risk?”  The lecture in The Assembly House will be chaired by Tim Smith, Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency, and followed by a buffet supper.  Tom Gorsuch OBE was Director of Research and QA at Colman Foods in Norwich until 1989, and served on many of the technical committees within the food industry and government, and a former President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology. 

At the Showcase of Young Science on March 11th, students and their supervisors will describe their work to groups from Norwich schools as well as to a public audience.  Professor Simon Carding will outline the importance of the gut lining in discriminating between food materials and potential disease-causing invaders, such as the parasite Toxoplasma gondii.  This causes the condition toxoplasmosis and is the subject of Caroline Weight’s PhD project, and she will explain the importance of this parasite and its effects on the gut barrier. 

Jan Claesen, with Prof. Mervyn Bibb, is investigating cypemycin, a new, unusually modified antibiotic.  By understanding how cypemycin is made they may be able to produce better derivatives, which will be crucial to countering the threat of antibiotic resistance. Robert Saville will be talking about how a gene that regulates the growth of wheat also affects its tolerance to stresses such as drought, salinity and pathogen attack.

The Showcase of Young Science, as well as the opening of Darwin Today and the Tom Gorsuch Lecture are free to attend, but tickets must be booked by contacting Dawn Barrett, telephone 01603 255328 or email dawn.barrett@bbsrc.ac.uk.

‘Darwin Today’ will be in The Forum from Monday, March 9th to Sunday March 22nd, as part of a tour taking it to all parts of the country.  A website to accompany the exhibition is available at http://www.darwin.rcuk.ac.uk/

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Contacts:
Andrew Chapple, Tel: 01603 251490, email: andrew.chapple@bbsrc.ac.uk
Zoe Dunford, Tel 01603 255111, email zoe.dunford@bbsrc.ac.uk

Notes to Editors

National Science and Engineering Week is coordinated by the British Science Association.  For more details see http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/nsew/

The John Innes Centre, www.jic.ac.uk, is an independent, world-leading research centre in plant and microbial sciences with over 800 staff. JIC is based on Norwich Research Park and carries out high quality fundamental, strategic and applied research to understand how plants and microbes work at the molecular, cellular and genetic levels. The JIC also trains scientists and students, collaborates with many other research laboratories and communicates its science to end-users and the general public. The JIC is an Institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.