Past Friday Seminars

A selection of previous Friday Seminar speakers and titles at the John Innes Centre;

Date Seminar
05/07/2024
‘Role of anionic lipids in the establishment, dynamics and function of membrane contact sites’

Speaker Prof. Yvon Jallais, University of Lyon

28/06/2024
‘The evolution of C4 photosynthesis and key players in chloroplast biogenesis’

Speaker Prof. Julian Hibberd, University of Cambridge

24/05/2024
‘Hopwood Lecture: From the unusual cell biology of Borrelia to Lyme disease’

Speaker Prof. Christine Jacobs-Wagner, Stanford University

24/05/2024
‘How to give bacteria food poisoning’

Speaker Prof. Lori Burrows, McMaster University

17/05/2024
DARLINGTON LECTURE:’Cellular signalling during plant reproduction’

Speaker Prof. Ueli Grossniklaus, University of Zurich

26/04/2024
‘Scaling the Wall: understanding structure/function relationships in leaves across scales’

Speaker Prof. Andrew Fleming, University of Sheffield

01/03/2024
‘Genome editing and sustainable agriculture: applications and implications’

Speaker Prof. Rodolphe Barrangou, North Carolina State University

09/02/2024
OPEN Biffen Lecture – ‘Land Sparing and Land Sharing: Regenerative Agriculture, Populism and the Role of Science’

Speaker Prof. Ken Giller, Wageningen University & Research

02/02/2024
‘Ubiquitin ligase relays and diverse chain topologies coordinate immune signalling’

Speaker Prof. Steven Spoel, University of Edinburgh

19/01/2024
‘Exploring the dark matter of phage genomes and its role in antiviral defence’

Speaker Prof. Karen Maxwell, University of Toronto

01/12/2023
‘Epigenetics beyond the chromosome: from molecules to ecosystems’

Speaker Dr. Daniel Jarosz, Stanford University

24/11/2023
‘Redefining mobility in bacterial genetics’

Speaker Prof. José Penadés, Imperial College London

14/07/2023
‘Mendel 200 celebrations – Randomness in Mendelian Processes: From Allowing Complex Life to Facilitating Causal Inference’

Speaker Professor George Davey Smith, University of Bristol

30/06/2023
‘Licensed to kill: Post-translational activation of a toxic antibacterial effector’

Speaker Professor Christopher Hayes, UC Santa Barbara

16/06/2023
‘On the initiation and maintenance of meristems’

Speaker Professor Henrik Jönsson, University of Cambridge

13/06/2023
‘From Genome Mapping of Traits to Genome Designing of Crops’

Speaker Professor Shifeng Cheng, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen (AGIS), Chinese Academy of Agriculture

09/06/2023
‘Redesigning plant metabolism with synthetic biology’

Speaker Dr. Patrick Shih, UC Berkeley

19/05/2023
‘The Hopwood Lecture: A celebration of microbial sequencing and its benefits for human health’

Speaker Professor Sharon Peacock, University of Cambridge

12/05/2023
‘Shaping cells – From micromechanics to morphogenesis’

Speaker Professor Anja Geitmann, Plant Science, McGill University

28/04/2023
‘Fantastic yeasts and how they evolved to be’

Speaker Professor Antonis Rokas, Vanderbilt University

24/03/2023
‘The dark matter of the Arabidopsis genome’

Speaker Professor Ian Henderson, University of Cambridge

17/03/2023
‘Mobilization of molecular defense by phytocytokine-receptor signaling’

Speaker Professor Libo Shan, Texas University

10/03/2023
‘How do dsDNA viruses assemble?’

Speaker Professor Fred Antson, University of York

24/02/2023
‘The Ins and Outs of Cereal Development’

Speaker Dr. Sarah McKim, University of Dundee

10/02/2023
The Scott Moncrieff Lecture: ‘Serendipity in symbiotic nitrogen fixation’

Speaker Professor Eva Kondorosi, Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

03/02/2023
‘Precision in plant immune expression: Not lost in translation’

Speaker Professor Xinnian Dong, Duke University

27/01/2023
‘Bateson Lecture: Breaking the Silence: How to make small plant mouths that support our sustenance’

Speaker Professor Keiko Torii, University of Washington and The University of Texas, Austin

20/01/2023
‘Epigenetic regulation of plant traits and environmental adaptation’

Speaker Professor Xuehua Zhong, Washington University, St Louis

25/11/2022
‘Evolution of endogenous retroviruses – and their control by small RNAs’

Speaker Professor Julius Brennecke, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Austria

18/11/2022
‘Molecular Phenology: In Nature Responses of Plants to a Seasonal Environment’

Speaker Professor Hiroshi Kudoh, Kyoto University

04/11/2022
‘Phylogenomics and the early evolution of life’

Speaker Associate Professor Tom Williams, University of Bristol

21/10/2022
‘Aneuploidy as a rapid driver of adaptation to diverse stresses’

Speaker Professor Judith Berman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

07/10/2022
THE BIFFEN LECTURE; ‘Gametes to zygotes to self-cloning plants: The importance of being egg-centric’

Speaker Professor Venkatesan Sundaresan, University of California, Davis

30/09/2022
‘Dynamic ribonucleoprotein complexes in the control of bacterial gene expression’

Speaker Professor Ben Luisi, University of Cambridge

23/09/2022
‘Impact of cryoEM in structural biology’

Speaker Professor Richard Henderson

01/07/2022
OPEN seminar ‘Genetic regulation of leaf development in C4 grasses’

Speaker Professor Jane Langdale, University of Oxford

24/06/2022
‘Harnessing plant metabolic evolution for new catalysts, medicines, and materials’

Speaker Dr Jing-Ke Weng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

17/06/2022
‘Towards understanding morphogenesis and functionality of phloem’

Speaker Professor Yka Helariutta, University of Cambridge

10/06/2022
‘Sensing the wall: Perception mechanisms of peptides involved in cell wall integrity and remodeling

Speaker Professor Julia Santiago Cuellar, University of Lausanne

27/05/2022
‘Getting to the root of plant-microbiome interactions’

Speaker Professor Cara Haney, The University of British Columbia

20/05/2022
‘Growing out of stress: how plants use development to thrive in a changing world’

Speaker Professor Jose Dinneny, Stanford University

06/05/2022
‘Exploring the Molecular Architecture of Photosynthetic Organelles with Cryo-Electron Tomography’

Speaker Professor Benjamin Engel Helmholtz, the Zentrum München

29/04/2022
‘Conservation of immune mechanisms between bacteria, plants and animals’

Speaker Professor Rotem Sorek, the Weizmann Institute of Science

01/04/2022
‘Uncovering the hidden half of plants: discovering novel ways roots sense and adapt to heterogeneous environments’

Speaker Professor Malcolm Bennett, University of Nottingham

25/03/2022
‘Variability and robustness in growth and morphogenesis: from Arabidopsis sepals to Marchantia propagules’

Speaker Professor Arezki Boudaoud, École Polytechnique

11/03/2022
‘Regulation of cellulose synthesis in Arabidopsis and beyond?’

Speaker Professor Staffan Persson, the University of Copenhagen

04/03/2022
‘What is sustainable agriculture and how does it link to sustainable food systems?’

Speaker Professor Tim Benton, Open Royal Institute of International Affairs

04/02/2022
‘Evolution of antiviral immunity from bacteria to animal cells ‘

Speaker Prof. Philip Kranzusch, Harvard Medical School

14/01/2022
‘Bacteria-phage warfare’

Speaker Professor Edze Westra, University of Exeter

26/11/2021
‘Connecting pathogen detection to induced defence in plant immunity’

Speaker Professor Jane Parker, Max Planck Institute

19/11/2021
‘Phylogenomics and evolutionary diversification of legumes – more than just peas and beans’

Speaker
Dr Colin Hughes, University of Zurich

12/11/2021
‘Regulation of seed size by mobile TERMINAL FLOWER1 in Arabidopsis’

Speaker
Professor Yu Hao, National University of Singapore

22/10/2021
‘Eat to Live: a Role for Diet in Cancer Therapy’

Speaker
Professor Karen Vousden, The Francis Crick Institute

1/10/2021
‘Pervasive impacts of domestication on microbial symbioses in chickpea’

Speaker
Professor Douglas Cook, University of California Davis

24/9/2021
‘Uncovering the apoplastic battlefield with activity-based proteomics’

Speaker
Professor Renier van der Hoorn, Oxford University

10/9/2021
‘Mechanisms and functions of RNA NAD+ capping’

Speaker
Professor Xuemei Chen, University of California, Riverside

25/6/2021
The Scott-Moncrieff lecture; ‘Exploring the genetic basis of floral novelty in Aquilegia’

Speaker
Professor Elena Kramer, Harvard University

11/6/2021
‘Friends, Foes, and Phages in the Phyllosphere’

Speaker
Professor Britt Koskella, University of California, Berkeley

21/5/2021
‘The Future of Farming’

Speaker
Professor Sir Dieter Helm, University of Oxford

7/5/2021
‘Learning the languages of chloroplasts through time and space’

Speaker
Professor Barry Pogson, Australian National University

30/4/2021
‘The Effectors of Smut Fungi and How They Shape Fungal Lifestyle’

Speaker
Professor Gunther Doehlemann from the University of Cologne

16/4/2021
‘Using electron cryotomography to visualise cell ultrastructure’

Speaker
Professor Grant Jensen from the Brigham Young University and California Institute of Technology

26/3/2021
‘A Synthetic Biology Approach to Engineer Nitrogen Fixation in Cereals’

Speaker
Professor Luis Rubio, Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics UPM, Madrid

19/3/2021
‘The Geometry of Decision-Making’

Speaker
Professor Iain Couzin, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany

12/3/2021
‘Genetics of salinity tolerance traits in crops – and developing saltwater-based agricultural systems’

Speaker
Professor Mark Tester, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, Saudi Arabia

26/2/2021
‘Tissue-specific regulation of DNA methylation patterns by the CLASSY protein family’

Speaker
Professor Julie Law, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

29/1/2021
‘The minimal cell is the hydrogen atom of biology’

Speaker
Professor John Glass, J.Craig Venter Institute

22/1/2021
‘Flux and polarity in the plant vascular system’

Speaker
Professor Christian Hardtke, University of Lausanne

15/1/2021
‘How to kill your rivals: microbial warfare mediated by the Type VI secretion system’

Speaker
Professor Sarah Coulthurst, University of Dundee

27/11/2020
‘Postranscriptional gene regulation in plant germline differentiation’

Speaker
Professor Karel Říha: CEITEC Masaryk University

13/11/2020
‘The Environment Shapes the Cell’

Speaker
Professor Petra Levin: Washington University in St. Louis

6/11/2020
‘Building a wall: Molecular insights into how bacteria do it’

Speaker
Professor Sheena Radford, University of Leeds

2/10/2020
‘To understand a daisy: Phyllotaxis of flower heads’

Speaker
Professor Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, University of Calgary

15/7/2020
Marchantia polymorpha as a model for understanding land plant evolution’

Speaker
Professor John Bowman, Monash University

8/7/2020
‘RNAi-dependent epimutations evoke transient antifungal drug resistance’

Speaker
Professor Joseph Heitman, Duke University School of Medicine

24/6/2020
‘Mechanistic insight into the regulation of epigenetic silencing by PRC2’

Speaker
Professor Eva Nogales, University of California Berkeley

6/3/2020
‘Understanding Polycomb-mediated gene repression’

Speaker
Professor Rob Klose, University of Oxford

28/2/2020
‘Codes within the Code: Synonymous codon optimality controls protein structure and gene expression’

Speaker
Professor Yi Liu, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

14/2/2020
The Scott-Moncrieff Lecture – ‘A conserved biochemical paradigm for signalosome assembly in animals and plants’

Speaker
Mariann Bienz, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

7/2/2020
‘Title unpublished’

Speaker
Dr David Stern, Janelia Research Campus, HHMI, Ashburn Virginia

31/1/2020
‘Making a flat leaf: Pre-patterning, morphogenic small RNAs, and Turing reactions’

Speaker
Professor Marja Timmermans, University of Tuebingen

24/1/2020
‘(Re)programming cell fate and function in Arabidopsis’

Speaker
Professor Doris Wagner, University of Pennsylvania

17/1/2020
‘Combining Phenomics, modelling and genomic prediction for identifying ideotypes adapted to a changing climate’

Speaker
Dr Francois Tardieu, French National Institute for Agricultural Research

10/1/2020
‘Patterns of cell size (and ploidy)’

Speaker
Professor Adrienne Roeder, Cornell University

13/12/2019
Professor Crisanto Gutierrez – ‘Cell proliferation during organogenesis: more complex than anticipated’

Speaker
Professor Crisanto Gutierrez, Centro De Biologia Molecular

29/11/2019
Professor Christine Beveridge – ‘Molecular physiology of shoot branching – hormones, sugars and networks’

Speaker
Professor Christine Beveridge, University of Queensland

22/11/2019
Dr Olivier Hamant – ‘Mechanical signals contribute to developmental robustness’

Speaker
Dr Olivier Hamant, Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge, based at Ens-Lyon

15/11/2019
Professor Jirí Frimlg – ‘Cell surface receptor complexes for regulating directional auxin fluxes during canalisation’

Speaker
Professor Jirí Friml, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria

8/11/2019
Professor Jan-Willem Veening – ‘Spatio-temporal control of DNA replication by the pneumococcal cell cycle regulator CcrZ’

Speaker
Professor Jan-Willem Veening, University of Lausanne

25/10/2019
Professor Louise Glass – ‘Licence to Kill: NLR and Gasdermin-like proteins regulate nonself recognition and cooperation in fungi’

Speaker
Professor Louise Glass, University of California, Berkeley

4/10/2019
The Woolhouse Lecture by Professor Tetsuya Higashiyama – ‘Key signalling molecules in plant reproduction “re-discovery of a reproductive hormone”’

Speaker
Professor Tetsuya Higashiyama, Nagoya University

27/9/2019
Professor Yijun Qi – “The Long and The Short: Small RNAs in Plants”

Speaker
Professor Yijun Qi, Tsinghua University

20/9/2019
Professor Eric Schranz – “Comparing Plant and Animal Genomes: Using Network-based microsynteny analysis to identify major differences and genomic outliers’”

Speaker
Professor Eric Schranz, Wageningen University

13/9/2019
Professor Neil Brockdorff – “The Molecular Mechanism of X chromosome inactivation’”

Speaker
Professor Neil Brockdorff, University of Oxford

6/9/2019
Dr Frederic Berger – “How to drive the plant life cycle with a single lysine residue”

Speaker
Dr Frederic Berger, Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology

12/7/2019
Dr Melania Figueroa and Dr Peter Dobbs

Speakers
Dr Melania Figueroa and Dr Peter Dobbs, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia

5/7/2019
Professor Wenbo Ma – “Defence and counter-defence: what can we learn from pathogen effectors”

Speaker
Professor Wenbo Ma, University of California

28/6/2019
Professor Maria Schumacher – “Structural mechanisms of prokaryotic DNA segregation and Francisella tularensis virulence activation”

Speaker
Professor Maria Schumacher, Duke University

21/6/2019
Professor Julian Schroeder – “CO2 Sensing in Plants and New Insights into Drought-Induced Abscisic Acid Signal Transduction”

Speaker
Professor Julian Schroeder, University of California, San Diego

14/6/2019
Professor Katayoon Dehesh – “Choreography of plastidial retrograde signaling network in interorganellar communication”

Speaker
Professor Katayoon Dehesh, University of California

24/5/2019
Professor Susan Lea – “Pulling type three secretion systems apart to put them back together high resolution views of complexes from flagellar and non-flagellar type three systems”

Speaker
Professor Susan Lea, Oxford University

24/5/2019
Professor Joe Thornton – “Reconstructing historical and alternative evolutionary paths through ancient sequence space”

Speaker
Professor Joe Thornton, University of Chicago

10/5/2019
Professor Martin Jonikas – “Structure, Biogenesis, and Engineering of the Eukaryotic CO2-Concentrating Organelle, the Pyrenoid”

Speaker
Professor Martin Jonikas, Princeton University

3/5/2019
Professor Robert Reed – “Developmental genetics of butterfly wing pattern evolution”

Speaker
Professor Robert Reed, Cornell University

15/3/2019
Professor Natalia Dudareva – “Learning from Nature: New function of plant volatiles and mode of their emission”

Speaker
Professor Natalia Dudareva, Purdue University

8/3/2019
Professor Bostjan Kobe – “The mechanism and role of NAD+ cleavage in signalling by TIR domains in mammalian and plant cell-death pathways”

Speaker
Professor Bostjan Kobe, University of Queensland

1/3/2019
Professor Ralph Bock – “Genes gone wild: Experimental evolution meets synthetic biology”

Speaker
Professor Ralph Bock, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology

15/2/2019
Professor John Collinge – “BSE, prion propagation and its wider relevance”

Speaker
Professor John Collinge, University College London & Harvard Medical School

8/2/2019
Professor Dolf Weijers – “Evolution and regulation of cell polarity and oriented cell division”

Speaker
Professor Dolf Weijers, Wageningen University

25/1/2019
Professor Alain Goriely – “Mathematics vs dementia: the ultimate folly”

Speaker
Professor Alain Goriely, University of Oxford

18/1/2019
Professor Emily Balskus – “Chemical discovery in the microbial world”

Speaker
Professor Emily Balskus, Harvard University, USA

11/1/2019
Professor Benjamin Simons – “A unifying theory of branching morphogenesis”

Speaker
Professor Benjamin Simons, University of Cambridge

7/12/2018
Professor Regine Kahmann – “How fungi deploy secreted effector proteins to colonise plants”

Speaker
Professor Regine Kahmann, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg

30/11/2018
Professor Wilfred van der Donk – The Hopwood Lecture – “Posttranslational Modifications during Cyclic Peptide Biosynthesis”

Speaker
Professor Wilfred van der Donk, University of Illinois

16/11/2018
Professor John Doebley – “Quantitative genetic modelling of maize domestication: selection, constraint and consequences”

Speaker
Professor John Doebley from University of Wisconsin

Host
Laura Dixon

09/11/2018
The Chatt Lecture by Professor Jim Naismith, University of Oxford and Director of the Research Complex at Harwell

Speaker
Professor Jim Naismith from University of Oxford

Host
Rob Field/Mark Banfield

02/11/2018
Professor Catherine Peichel – “Genetics of adaptation in stickleback: the roles of pleiotropy and linkage”

Speaker
Professor Catherine Peichel from University of Bern

Host
Kirsten Bomblies

19/10/2018
Professor Dave Jackson – “Enhancing yield traits by manipulation of meristem pathways in maize”

Speaker
Professor Dave Jackson from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Host
Scott Boden

05/10/2018
Professor Joy Bergelson – “Can we structure the microbiome of Arabidopsis thaliana?”

Speaker
Professor Joy Bergelson from University of Chicago

Host
Elizabeth Chapman / Jack Rhodes (Student Voice)

28/09/2018
Professor Dianne Newman – “The importance of changing color: roles for redox active “antibiotics” in microbial survival and development”

Speaker
Professor Dianne Newman from Californian Institute of Technology

Host
Kelley Gallagher

21/09/2018
Professor Marek Basler – “Type VI secretion system: From Structure to Dynamics and Function”

Speaker
Professor Marek Basler from University of Basel

Host
Jake Malone

14/09/2018
Professor Nicole Steinmetz – “NanoEngineering gone viral: plant virus nanotechnology targeting human and plant health”

Speaker
Professor Nicole Steinmetz from University of California, San Diego

Host
George Lomonossoff

07/09/2018
Prof. Samuel Zeeman – “A fresh look at starch biosynthesis using new synthetic and cell-biological approaches”

Speaker
Prof. Samuel Zeeman from ETH Zurich

Host
David Seung and Alison Smith

20/07/2018
Professor Michael Lenhard – “The molecular basis of floral traits linked to different plant reproductive systems”

Speaker
Professor Michael Lenhard from University of Potsdam

Host
Lars Ostergaard

13/07/2018
Professor Pamela Soltis – “Polyploidy as Integrator Across Levels of Biological Organization: From Cells to Ecosystems”

Speaker
Professor Pamela Soltis from Florida Museum, University of Florida

Host
Beatriz Goncalves

06/07/2018
Professor Joseph Jez – “Molecular Controls in Plant Hormone Responses”

Speaker
Professor Joseph Jez from Washington University, St Louis

Host
Sarah O’Connor

29/06/2018
** SEMINAR POSTPONED ** Professor Jiayang Li – The Biffen Lecture

Speaker
Professor Jiayang Li

Host
Dale Sanders/Cristobal Uauy

22/06/2018
Prof David Lilley FRS – “The structural biology of RNA in epigenetic and gene control by riboswitches”

Speaker
Professor David Lilley FRS from University of Dundee

Host
Yiliang Ding

15/06/2018
Dr Richard Buggs – “Genomics for future trees”

Speaker
Dr Richard Buggs from Royal Botanical Gardens Kew and Queen Mary University of London

Host
James Brown

08/06/2018
The Woolhouse Lecture by Professor Sean Cutler – “Programming inducible traits with engineered ABA signaling modules”

Speaker
Professor Sean Cutler from University of California, Riverside

Host
Lars Ostergaard

18/05/2018
Dr. Raphael Mercier – “Unleashing meiotic crossovers in plants”

Speaker
Dr. Raphael Mercier from INRA Versailles

Host
Scott Boden

11/05/2018
Professor Asaph Aharoni – “Chemistry in the First Line of Defense: Polymers, Lipids and Pigment Barriers”

Speaker
Professor Asaph Aharoni from Weizmann Institute of Science

Host
Anne Osbourn

04/05/2018
Professor Steve Long – “Increasing Crop Productivity Sustainably by Bioengineering Improved Photosynthetic Efficiency – From Maths to Field”

Speaker
Professor Steve Long from University of Illinois and Lancaster University

Host
Alison Smith

27/04/2018
Professor Paul Birch – “The molecular battle between late blight disease resistance and susceptibility”

Speaker
Professor Paul Birch from University of Dundee

Host
Jonathan Jones & Sophien Kamoun

20/04/2018
Professor Sheng Yang He – “Disease-climate-microbiota interactions in the phyllosphere”

Speaker
Professor Sheng Yang He from Michigan State University

Host
Cyril Zipfel

23/03/2018
Prof. Marnix Medema – “Computational genomics of microbial and plant specialized metabolism: from natural product discovery to microbiome ecology”

Speaker
Professor Marnix Medema from Wageningen University

Host
Anne Osbourn

09/03/2018
Professor Eric Miska “GxE in worm and fish”

Speaker
Professor Eric Miska from University of Cambridge

Host
Xiaoqi Feng

02/03/2018
Prof Manish Raizada – “Mobile Endophytic Microbes in a World of Immobile Plant Cells, and Sustainable Agriculture Kits (SAKs) for Smallholder Farmers”

Speaker
Professor Manish Raizada from University of Guelph, Ontario

Host
Peter van Esse

23/02/2018
Prof. Beverley Glover – “Evolution and development of petal nanostructures that influence pollinator behaviour”

Speaker
Professor Beverley Glover from University of Cambridge

Host
Christopher Whitewoods

09/02/2018
Prof. David Beerling – “Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security”

Speaker
Professor David Beerling from University of Sheffield

Host
Alison Smith

02/02/2018
Prof. Jian Feng Ma – “Molecular mechanisms for distribution of mineral elements in plants”

Speaker
Professor Jian Feng Ma from Okayama University

Host
Dale Sanders & Tony Miller

26/01/2018
Prof. Anne Ferguson-Smith – “Variable methylation of mammalian retrotransposons – implications for non-genetic inheritance”

Speaker
Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith from University of Cambridge

Host
Caroline Dean

19/01/2018
Professor Sureshkumar Balasubramanian – “Arabidopsis : from thermal responses to human genetic diseases”

Speaker
Professor Sureshkumar Balasubramanian from Monash University, Australia

Host
Catherine Gardener

12/01/2018
Prof. Jim Murray – “How do plant cells decide when they are large enough to divide?: an integrated approach to linking growth and cell cycle control”

Speaker
Professor Jim Murray from Cardiff University

Host
Stan Maree

01/12/2017
Professor Christina Smolke – “Synthetic biology platforms for plant natural product biosynthesis and discovery”

Speaker
Professor Christina Smolke from Stanford University

Host
Aymeric Leveau

24/11/2017
Professor Hopi Hoekstra – The Inaugural Rose Scott-Moncrieff Lecture: “From the field to the lab: the genetic basis of evolutionary change”

Speaker
Professor Hopi Hoekstra from Harvard University

Host
Kirsten Bomblies / Sarah Tolland

17/11/2017
Professor Melanie Blokesch – “Pathoecology and evolution of the cholera-causing pathogen Vibrio cholerae”

Speaker
Professor Melanie Blokesch from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Host
Tung Le

03/11/2017
Professor Miltos Tsiantis – “Development and Diversity of Leaf shape: towards trait reconstruction”

Speaker
Professor Miltos Tsiantis from Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Host
Lars Ostergaard

06/10/2017
“Toasting” Our Genomes: How Alcohol and aldehydes cause damage to us

Speaker
Professor KJ Patel from MRC LMB, Cambridge

Host
Janneke Balk

29/09/2017
Professor Lucas Pelkmans – “The mammalian cell cycle: Cycling through phase space”

Speaker
Professor Lucas Pelkmans from University of Zurich

Host
Martin Howard

22/09/2017
Professor L. Mahadevan – “Some physical aspects of plant morphogenesis”

Speaker
Professor L. Mahadevan from Harvard University

Host
Stan Maree

15/09/2017
Professor Jijie Chai – “Recognition of plant peptide hormones by their receptors”

Speaker
Professor Jijie Chai from Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne

Host
Mark Banfield

08/09/2017
Professor Chuan He – “RNA methylation in gene expression regulation”

Speaker
Professor Chuan He from University of Chicago

Host
Yiliang Ding

14/07/2017
Professor Andy Challinor – “Using models and data to adapt crop production to our changing climates”

Speaker
Professor Andy Challinor from University of Leeds

Host
Steven Penfield

07/07/2017
The Bateson Lecture by Professor Fred Ausubel – “Modeling Plant-Microbe Interactions”

Speaker
Professor Fred Ausubel from Dept of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital

Host
Jonathan Jones

30/06/2017
Professor Stephan Gruber – “Chromosome Organization: How to Make the Right Connections?”

Speaker
Professor Stephan Gruber from Lausanne University, Switzerland

Host
Tung Le / Sarah Tolland

23/06/2017
Professor Helge Bode – “Natural products from bugs that kill bugs: from chemical ecology to synthetic biology and peptide engineering”

Speaker
Professor Helge Bode from Goethe University, Frankfurt

Host
Barrie Wilkinson / Sarah Tolland

16/06/2017
“A Vision for Agricultural R&D in Africa” – Professor Jacob Mignouna, Director, Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA-ILRI)

Speaker
Professor Jacob Mignouna from Director, BecA

Host
Trevor Wang

09/06/2017
Extreme abiotic stress-related physiological traits in an Arabidopsis-related emerging model plant: molecular mechanisms, ecological roles & evolution

Speaker
Professor Ute Krämer from Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Host
Levi Yant / Sarah Tolland

26/05/2017
Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan – “Insights into tuberculosis pathogenesis and treatment from the zebrafish”

Speaker
Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan from University of Cambridge

Host
Tony Maxwell/Sarah Tolland

19/05/2017
Professor John Tyson – “What can mathematical modelling teach us about cell cycle regulation?”

Speaker
Professor John Tyson from Virginia Tech

Host
Hang Zhang/Sarah Tolland

12/05/2017
The Chatt Lecture: Professor Tom Muir – “Painting Chromatin with Synthetic Protein Chemistry”

Speaker
Professor Tom Muir from Princeton University

Host
Rob Field / Sarah Tolland

05/05/2017
Professor Jan Löwe – “New biological insights revealed by the application of Cryo-EM: Structure of the surface of Caulobacter crescentus cells”

Speaker
Prof. Jan Löwe from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Host
Mark Buttner / Jenna Conway

28/04/2017
Professor John Taylor – “Using natural genomic variation and signatures of evolution to associate phenotypes with genes in fungi”

Speaker
Professor John Taylor from University of California, Berkeley

Host
Sophien Kamoun

21/04/2017
Professor Jane Mellor – “Linking Transcription to the Fate of RNA Transcripts”

Speaker
Prof. Jane Mellor from Oxford University

Host
Caroline Dean

31/03/2017
The Darlington Lecture by Professor Jean Beggs – “Functional interactions between splicing, transcription and chromatin”

Speaker
Professor Jean Beggs from University of Edinburgh

Host
Caroline Dean

24/03/2017
Professor Maria Harrison – “Reprogramming root cells for arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis”

Speaker
Prof. Maria Harrison from Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research

Host
Giles Oldroyd

17/03/2017
Professor Niko Geldner – “The endodermis – walking the thin line between uptake and protection”

Speaker
Prof. Niko Geldner from University of Lausanne

Host
Laila Moubayidin/Sarah Tolland

10/03/2017
The Hopwood Lecture presented by Professor Julian Parkhill: Dating bacterial evolution: understanding the emergence and spread of human pathogens

Speaker
Professor Julian Parkhill from The Sanger Institute

Host
Mark Buttner

03/03/2017
Professor Wendy Bickmore – “The remote control of gene expression: – the role of distant enhancers”

Speaker
Professor Wendy Bickmore from MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Host
Tony Maxwell

24/02/2017
Professor Yves Brun – “Localizing peptidoglycan synthesis for bacterial growth and morphogenesis”

Speaker
Prof. Yves Brun from University of Indiana

Host
Mark Buttner

10/02/2017
Professor Elizabeth Sattely – “Discovery and Engineering of Plant Specialized Metabolism”

Speaker
Prof. Elizabeth Sattely from Stanford University

Host
Anne Osbourn

03/02/2017
Professor Kaspar Locher – “Understanding the molecular mechanisms with which bacteria glycosylate proteins”

Speaker
Prof. Kaspar Locher from ETH Zurich

Host
Rob Field

27/01/2017
Professor Claus Schwechheimer – “PIN-ning down the function of D6 PROTEIN KINASES in auxin-dependent plant development”

Speaker
Professor Claus Schwechheimer from Technische Universität München

Host
Scott Boden

20/01/2017
Professor Peter Waterhouse – “Exploring and exploiting the Nicotiana benthamiana genome”

Speaker
Prof. Peter Waterhouse from Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

Host
Cathie Martin / George Lomonossoff

13/01/2017
Prof. Jonathan Gershenzon – “Benzoxazinoids: Two-component plant defenses of cereals”

Speaker
Professor Jonathan Gershenzon from Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena

Host
Sarah O’Connor

09/12/2016
The Biffen Lecture by Professor Edward Buckler – “Breeding 4.0? Sorting through the adaptive and deleterious variants in maize and beyond”

Speaker
Professor Edward Buckler from US Department of Agriculture

Host
Jonathan Jones

02/12/2016
Professor Junko Kyozuka – “Control of leaf, shoot branch and inflorescence development by common genetic modules in rice”

Speaker
Professor Junko Kyozuka from Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University

Host
Scott Boden

25/11/2016
The 2017 Haldane Lecture – “Human migrations and megafaunal extinctions” – Professor Eske Willerslev

Speaker
Professor Eske Willerslev from Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen

Host
Lars Ostergaard

04/11/2016
Professor Zachary Lippman – “More stem cells, more tomatoes!!”

Speaker
Professor Zachary Lippman from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Host
Nick Pullen

21/10/2016
“Antibiotics: To be, or not to be? That is the question” – Prof. Ian Charles, Director, IFR

Speaker
Professor Ian Charles from Director, Institute of Food Research

Host
Anne Osbourn

11/10/2016
“From Cell Biology to Chemical Genomics” – Professor Natasha Raikhel

Speaker
Professor Natasha Raikhel from Botany & Plant Sciences Dept, University of California Riverside

Host
Dale Sanders & Tony Miller

30/09/2016
The 2016 Chatt Lecture by Professor Venki Ramakrishnan – “Using recent advances in cryoelectron microscopy to study ribosome structure”

Speaker
Professor Venki Ramakrishnan from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Host
Mark Banfield

23/09/2016
The Haldane Lecture by Professor Michael Elowitz – “Design Principles of Mammalian Signaling and Epigenetic Memory Circuits”

Speaker
Profesor Michael Elowitz from California Institute of Technology

Host
Martin Howard

16/09/2016
Professor Frank Uhlmann – “Chromatin and chromosome architecture, the role of SMC proteins”

Speaker
Frank Uhlmann from Francis Crick Institute

Host
Tung Le

09/09/2016
Dr Nick Lane – “The singular origin of complex life”

Speaker
Dr Nick Lane from Dept of Genetics, Evolution & Env, University College London

Host
Agatha Jouet

08/07/2016
Professor Joern Piel – Natural product pathways from microbial dark matter

Speaker
Professor Joern Piel from Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich

Host
Barrie Wilkinson

24/06/2016
Prof Martin Yanofsky – The Woolhouse Lecture – Arabidopsis: From Fruit to Roots

Speaker
Professor Martin Yanofsky from Section of Cell & Developmental Biology, University of California San Diego

Host
Lars Ostergaard

17/06/2016
Prof Daniel Voytas – The genome engineering revolution and plant agriculture

Speaker
Professor Daniel Voytas from University of Minnesota

Host
Jonathan Jones

10/06/2016
Professor Kerwyn C Huang – A systems biophysics approach to bacterial physiology

Speaker
Professor Kerwyn C Huang from Stanford University

Host
Thomas Scott

27/05/2016
Professor Enrico Martinoia – The role of strigolactone transport in plant development, nutrition and mycorrhization

Speaker
Professor Enrico Martinoia from Inst of Plant Biology, University of Zurich

Host
Janneke Balk

20/05/2016
Professor Sarah Gurr – Fungal challenges to global food security and ecosystems health

Speaker
Professor Sarah Gurr from University of Exeter

Host
James Brown

13/05/2016
Prof Russell Vance – Strategies for innate detection of bacterial pathogens by mammals

Speaker
Professor Russell Vance from Dept Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Host
Cyril Zipfel

06/05/2016
Dr Thomas Bernhardt – Constructing the bacterial cell wall

Speaker
Dr Thomas Bernhardt from Dept Microbiology & Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School

Host
Mark Buttner

29/04/2016
Professor Chris Jiggins – Fuzzy species and adaptive introgression in butterflies

Speaker
Professor Chris Jiggins from Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

22/04/2016
Prof Sabeeha Merchant – Dynamic metal housing compartments in Chlamydomonas

Speaker
Professor Sabeeha Merchant from Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Institute for Genomics & Proteomics

Host
Janneke Balk

15/04/2016
Dr Anja Geitmann – Asking for directions – the challenging private lives of plants

Speaker
Dr Anja Geitmann from Department of Plant Science, McGill University, Montreal

Host
Leonie Luginbuehl

08/04/2016
Prof Michael Hothorn – A molecular view on plant signal transduction

Speaker
Professor Michael Hothorn from Dept Botany & Plant Biology, University of Geneva

Host
Cyril Zipfel

18/03/2016
Professor Kim Lewis – The quest for new antibiotics

Speaker
Professor Kim Lewis from Northeastern University, USA

Host
Andrew Truman

11/03/2016
POSTPONED – seminar by Professor Joseph Heitman

Speaker
Professor Joseph Heitman from Dept Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Duke University, USA

Host
Sophien Kamoun

04/03/2016
Professor Siobhan Brady – Regulation of root developmental networks at cell type-resolution

Speaker
Professor Siobhan Brady from Dept of Plant Biology and Genome Center, University of California, Davis

Host
Steve Penfield and Veronica Grieneisen

26/02/2016
Professor Ivan Dikic – Phosphorylation and ubiquitin-dependent selective autophagy

Speaker
Professor Ivan Dikic from Director, Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University, Frankfurt

Host
Cyril Zipfel

12/02/2016
Dr Nils Stein – Genome sequences for the Triticeae – a contribution to solve the yield gap?

Speaker
Dr Nils Stein from IPK, Gatersleben, Germany

Host
Burkhard Steuernagel

29/01/2016
Prof C Neil Hunter FRS – Many chlorophylls make light work

Speaker
Professor C Neil Hunter FRS from Dept Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, University of Sheffield

Host
Tony Maxwell

22/01/2016
Professor Claudia Kohler – Epigenetic drivers of plant speciation

Speaker
Professor Claudia Kohler from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Host
Xiaoqi Feng

15/01/2016
Professor Felix Randow – How cells defend their cytosol against bacteria

Speaker
Professor Felix Randow from MRC Lab of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Host
Mark Banfield

08/01/2016
Professor Luke Alphey – Genetic control of pest insects

Speaker
Professor Luke Alphey from The Pirbright Institute

Host
George Lomonossoff

11/12/2015
Professor Michael Fischbach – The Hopwood Lecture: Small molecules from the human microbiota

Speaker
Professor Michael Fischbach from Dept of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences, UCSF

Host
Mervyn Bibb

04/12/2015
Dr Rene Geurts – Rhizobium nitrogen-fixing root nodules on the non-legume Parasponia

Speaker
Dr Rene Geurts from Plant Sciences, Wageningen University

Host
Myriam Charpientier

27/11/2015
Dr Sabrina Sabatini – Hormones interaction and root growth

Speaker
Professor Sabrina Sabatini from University La Sapienza, Rome

Host
Laila Moubayidin

20/11/2015
Prof Yrjo Helariutta:The role of symplastic communication during vascular development in Arabidopsis

Speaker
Professor Yrjo Helariutta from The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Host
Christine Faulkner

13/11/2015
Prof Kevin Foster – Cooperation and competition in microbes: from model systems to the microbiome

Speaker
Professor Kevin Foster from Dept of Zoology, University of Oxford

Host
Mark Buttner

06/11/2015
Professor Lars Dietrich – Metabolic regulation of bacterial community behavior

Speaker
Professor Lars Dietrich from Dept Biological Sciences, Columbia University

Host
Jacob Malone

30/10/2015
Prof Lotte Sogaard-Andersen – Regulation, assembly, architecture and function of type IV pili

Speaker
Professor Lotte Sogaard-Andersen from Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany

Host
Mark Buttner

09/10/2015
Professor Jeff Doyle – Polyploidy, nodulation, and legume evolution

Speaker
Professor Jeff Doyle from Plant Biology Section, Cornell University

Host
Claire Domoney

25/09/2015
Professor David Denlinger – Shutting down for the winter: an insect perspective

Speaker
Professor David Denlinger from Ohio State University

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

18/09/2015
Professor Ueli Grossniklaus – A role for epigenetics in ecology and evolution

Speaker
Professor Ueli Grossniklaus from Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich

Host
Lars Ostergaard

11/09/2015
Prof Lord May – The Biffen Lecture: Unanswered Questions in Ecology, And Why They Matter

Speaker
Professor Lord May from Dept of Zoology, University of Oxford

Host
Stan Maree

04/09/2015
Professor Julia Vorholt – Structure and functions of the bacterial phyllosphere microbiota

Speaker
Professor Julia Vorholt from Inst of Microbiology, ETH, Zurich

Host
Christine Faulkner

03/07/2015
CANCELLED: Global Movement of Pests and Pathogens: A Challenge to Global Food Security

Speaker
Professor Sarah Gurr from Biosciences, University of Exeter

Host
James Brown

26/06/2015
Floral heteromorphy in Primula: the quest for the S locus

Speaker
Professor Philip Gilmartin from Dean of Science, University of East Anglia

Host
Robert Sablowski

19/06/2015
Structure,function,assembly and engineering of the carboxysome and other bacterial microcompartments

Speaker
Professor Cheryl Kerfeld from Plant & Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Host
Alison Smith

12/06/2015
The unexpected history of Genetics

Speaker
Dr Berris Charnley from St Anne’s College, University of Oxford

Host
Dale Sanders

05/06/2015
Leaf-to-leaf wound signals

Speaker
Professor Edward Farmer from Dept Plant Molecular Biology, University of Lausanne

Host
Thomas Vincent

15/05/2015
Transmitting an epigenetic memory of germline across generations and through development

Speaker
Professor Susan Strome from University of California Santa Cruz

Host
Caroline Dean

24/04/2015
Structural and molecular biology of bacterial secretion systems

Speaker
Professor Gabriel Waksman from Dept Structural & Molecular Biology, University College London

Host
Mark Banfield

17/04/2015
The Chatt Lecture – Glycocalyx engineering toward probing cancer glycome evolution

Speaker
Professor Carolyn Bertozzi from University of California, Berkeley

Host
Sarah O’Connor

27/03/2015
Engineering microbial metabolism for production of drugs, chemicals, and fuels

Speaker
Professor Jay Keasling from University of California, Berkeley, USA

Host
Barrie Wilkinson

20/03/2015
Darlington Lecture – Origin and consequences of genetic and epigenetic variation in A. thaliana

Speaker
Professor Detlef Weigel from Molecular Biology of Plants & Animals, MPI for Developmental Biology

Host
Benjamin Hall

06/03/2015
The 2015 Bateson Lecture – Outer limits of genetic technologies

Speaker
Professor George Church from Harvard Medical School

Host
Paul O’Maille

27/02/2015
Oxygen as a positional signal during seedling development

Speaker
Professor Miguel Blazquez from Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (CSIC-UPV)

Host
Antonio Serrano-Mislata

13/02/2015
Evolution and development of land plant rooting systems

Speaker
Professor Liam Dolan from Dept Plant Sciences, University of Oxford

Host
Lars Ostergaard

30/01/2015
Future directions for Rothamsted Research

Speaker
Professor Achim Dobermann from Director, Rothamsted Research

Host
Dale Sanders

12/12/2014
The Haldane Lecture – Mutation, Drift, and the Origin of Subcellular Features

Speaker
Professor Michael Lynch from Dept of Biology, Indiana University

Host
Xana Rebocho

05/12/2014
Novel concepts in our understanding of gene expression

Speaker
Professor Mordechai Choder from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Host
Caroline Dean

28/11/2014
Simple systems for engineering plants

Speaker
Dr Jim Haseloff from Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

Host
Zane Duxbury

21/11/2014
Catching the wave: Ca2+, ROS and systemic signaling in Arabidopsis

Speaker
Professpr Simon Gilroy from University of Wisconsin

Host
Dale Sanders

14/11/2014
The Hopwood Lecture: The Itty-Bitty Time Machine: how cyanobacteria tell time

Speaker
Professor Susan Golden from Division of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

07/11/2014
Sweet talking: Plant recognition of microbial carbohydrates and downstream responses

Speaker
Professor Jens Stougaard from Dept Molecular Biology & Genetics, Aarhus University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

10/10/2014
The Woolhouse Lecture – Plant cytokinesis – a tale of membrane traffic and fusion

Speaker
Professor Gerd Juergens from ZMBP, University of Tuebingen

Host
Silke Robatzek

03/10/2014
Exploiting the synthetic capacity of microbes for the production of novel value-added biochemical

Speaker
Professor Kristala Prather from MIT, Cambridge, USA

Host
Anna Stavrinides

26/09/2014
Bactofilins: new players in the organization of bacterial cells

Speaker
Dr Martn Thanbichler from MPI for Terrestial Microbiology, Marburg, Germany

Host
Mark Buttner & Susan Schlimpert

19/09/2014
POSTPONED date to be confirmed seminar by Dr Evans Lagudah

Speaker
Dr Evans Lagudah from Plant Industry, CSIRO, Australia

Host
Burkhard Steuernagel

12/09/2014
POSTPONED date to be confirmed seminar by Professor Ann Pearson

Speaker
Professor Ann Pearson from Lab for Molecular Biogeochemistry & Organic Geochemistry, Harvard Uni

Host
Anne Osbourn

11/07/2014
Microbial interactions from a molecular perspective

Speaker
Professor Christian Hertweck from Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research, Jena

Host
Barrie Wilknson

04/07/2014
Gene expression genomics in T cells

Speaker
Dr Sarah Teichmann from EMBL-EBI, Cambridge

Host
Richard Morris

27/06/2014
The inflammasome-mediated innate immune detection of bacterial pathogens

Speaker
Dr Feng Shao from National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing

Host
Mark Banfield

20/06/2014
The Biffen Lecture – Engineering crops for resistance to disease and tolerance of stress

Speaker
Professor Pamela Ronald from Dept Plant Pathology & The Genome Center, University of California, Davis

Host
Lars Ostergaard

06/06/2014
Genetic and hormonal control of inflorescence architecture in maize

Speaker
Professor Andrea Gallavotti from The Waksman Institute of Microbiology, Rutgers, State University of NJersey

Host
Lars Ostergaard

02/05/2014
Transport of plant natural products – using glucosinolates as case study

Speaker
Professor Barbara Ann Halkier from Dept Plant & Envirronmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen

Host
Sarah O’Connor

25/04/2014
Small RNAs as Morphogen-Like Signals in the Patterning of Leaves

Speaker
Professor Marja Timmermans from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Host
Xana Rebocho

11/04/2014
CANCELLED – seminar by Dr Fitnat Yildiz

Speaker
Dr Fitnat Yildiz from Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology,University of California Santa Cruz

Host
Jacob Malone

28/03/2014
Detoxification of xenobiotics by Apis mellifera, or, it takes guts to be a honeybee

Speaker
Professor May Berenbaum from Dept of Entomology, University of Illinois

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

14/03/2014
Multidimensional proteomics: analysing phenotype in the 21st century

Speaker
Professor Angus Lamond from Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, University of Dundee, Dundee

Host
Peter Shaw

07/03/2014
Watching and quantifying biochemical processes in intact plants

Speaker
Professor Wolf Frommer from Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, USA

Host
Paul O’Maille

28/02/2014
A Doppler effect in embryonic patterning

Speaker
Professor Andrew Oates from University College London

Host
Martin Howard

14/02/2014
Nutrition beyond – meeting energy needs

Speaker
Professor Ricardo Uauy from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Host
Cathie Martin

07/02/2014
The Bateson Lecture – Embryonic Adolescence: Control of Gene Expression During Early Fly Development

Speaker
Dr Michael Eisen from Dept of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Host
Lars Ostergaard

31/01/2014
Mapping the internal organization of bacterial cells

Speaker
Professor Michael Laub from MIT Department of Biology, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

24/01/2014
Hormones and emergence of robust spatio-temporal patterns at the shoot apical meristem

Speaker
Dr Teva Vernoux from ENS Lyon, France

Host
Lars Ostergaard

13/12/2013
Non-coding RNAs in Epigenome Regulation

Speaker
Dr Mark Bühler from Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Switzerland

Host
Caroline Dean

06/12/2013
Waterproofing plants: Sensing, signaling and response mechanisms

Speaker
Professor Julia Bailey-Serres from Centre for Plant Cell Biology, University of California

Host
Dale Sanders

29/11/2013
Post-translational regulation of transcription dynamics in plant immunity

Speaker
Dr Steven H Spoel from Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Host
Pooja Saxena

22/11/2013
New ways to probe host-pathogen interactions in vitro and in vivo

Speaker
Professor Hidde Ploegh from Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA

Host
Mark Banfield

15/11/2013
The central growth control network in Arabidopsis

Speaker
Dr Zhiyong Wang from Dept Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science

Host
Cyril Zipfel

08/11/2013
Flipping the switch: Regulating bacterial gene expression with riboswitch RNAs

Speaker
Professor Tina Henkin from Dept of Microbiology, Ohio State University

Host
Merv Bibb

01/11/2013
The Hopwood Lecture – Manipulating quorum sensing to control bacterial pathogenicity

Speaker
Professor Bonnie Bassler from Princeton University

Host
Mark Buttner

25/10/2013
POSTPONED NEW DATE TBC – Stability control of plant NB-LRR immune receptors

Speaker
Professor Xin Li from Dept of Botany, University of British Columbia

Host
Jacqueline Monaghan

11/10/2013
Investigating the biology of plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe Oryzae

Speaker
Professor Nicholas Talbot from University of Exeter

Host
Oliver Furzer

04/10/2013
2013 Haldane Lecture – microRNAs decrease gene expression noise

Speaker
Professor Alexander van Oudenaarden from Hubrecht Institute-KNAW & University Medical Center Utrecht

Host
Martin Howard

20/09/2013
The root apex as headquarter for root branching

Speaker
Professor Tom Beeckman from VIB Dept of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

13/09/2013
Cancelled – new date tbc – seminar by Professor Stephen Benkovic

Speaker
Professor Stephen Benkovic from Pennsylvania State University

Host
Sarah O’Connor

12/07/2013
Recognition of “self”: unravelling key signals and targets in incompatible pollen

Speaker
Professor Noni Franklin-Tong from School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham

Host
Dale Sanders

05/07/2013
How plants LINC the SUN to KASH

Speaker
Professor Iris Meier from Dept Molecular Genetics, Ohio State University

Host
Lennart Wirthmueller

28/06/2013
CANCELLED – seminar by Professor Gebisa Ejeta

Speaker
Professor Gebisa Ejeta from Dept of Agronomy, University of Purdue

Host
Cristobal Uauy

21/06/2013
Metabolomics-based functional genomics: From Arabidopsis to crops and medicinal plants

Speaker
Dr Kazuki Saito from Deputy Center Director, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science,Japan

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

14/06/2013
The Darlington Lecture – DNA technology as the engine of scientific discovery

Speaker
Professor Chad Nusbaum from Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Host
Sophien Kamoun

07/06/2013
From plant immunity to pathogen virulence and back

Speaker
Dr Jian-Min Zhou from Inst of Genetics & Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Host
Cyril Zipfel

24/05/2013
Morphogenetic functions of actomyosin

Speaker
Dr Stephan W Grill from MPI-PKS / MPI-CBG, Germany

Host
Martin Howard

17/05/2013
Marine actinobacteria, a growing resource for biotechnology and biomedicine

Speaker
Professor Bradley Moore from University of California at San Diego

Host
Merv Bibb

10/05/2013
Manipulating plant cell wall polysaccharide synthesis for biorefining and bioenergy

Speaker
Professor Paul Dupree from Dept of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK

Host
Rob Field & Stephen Bornemann

03/05/2013
E. coli cell fission

Speaker
Professor Piet de Boer from Dept Molecular Biology & Microbiology, Case Western Reserve University

Host
Mark Buttner

26/04/2013
Pseudomonas syringae type III effectors

Speaker
Professor James Alfano from University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA

Host
Cyril Zipfel

19/04/2013
RNA on the Defense: RNA-programmed Genome Protection

Speaker
Professor Jennifer Doudna from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Berkeley, USA

Host
David Lawson

05/04/2013
Same same but different: Towards the genealogy and evolution of Triticeae genomes

Speaker
Dr Klaus Mayer from Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen

Host
Cristobal Uauy

22/03/2013
C4 photosynthesis – new perspectives from comparative evolutionary transcriptomics

Speaker
Professor Andreas Weber from Inst for Plant Biochemistry, Heinrich-Heine University

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

15/03/2013
Mechanisms and evolution of transcriptional regulation in mammals

Speaker
Dr Duncan Odom from Cancer Research UK, Cambridge

Host
Mike Bevan

08/03/2013
Quantitative genomics of metabolism – The mechanistic basis of epistasis and pleiotropy

Speaker
Professor Daniel Kliebenstein from Dept Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA

Host
Anne Osbourn

15/02/2013
Pleiotropy vs. pathogenesis: Progress towards understanding quantitative disease resistance in maize

Speaker
Professor Rebecca Nelson from Dpt Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University

Host
Christopher Ridout

08/02/2013
The Gram-negative cell envelope as seen by a translocating protein antibiotic

Speaker
Professor Colin Kleanthous from Dept of Biochemistry, University of Oxford

Host
Mark Buttner

01/02/2013
Capturing conversations of cell populations through a million little dots

Speaker
Professor Pieter Dorrestein from Depts Pharmacology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, UCSD

Host
Mervyn Bibb

25/01/2013
The evolution of C4 photosynthesis

Speaker
Dr Julian Hibberd from Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

Host
Philippa Borrill

18/01/2013
The Bateson Lecture – Shoot branching plasticity, how and why

Speaker
Professor Ottoline Leyser CBE FRS from Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

11/01/2013
Programming Bacteria

Speaker
Professor Christopher Voigt from Dept Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Inst of Technology

Host
Ellis O’Neill

07/12/2012
Hunting the Witch: Towards understanding the parasitic witchweed Striga

Speaker
Professor Ken Shirasu from RIKEN Plant Science Center, Japan

Host
Sophien Kamoun

30/11/2012
The Woolhouse Lecture – Atmospheric CO2 sensing and drought-induced abscisic acid signaling in plant

Speaker
Professor Julian Schroeder from Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego

Host
Jonathan Jones

23/11/2012
The root endodermis – new insights into an old barrier

Speaker
Professor Niko Geldner from Dept of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Lausanne

Host
Silke Robatzek

16/11/2012
What is needed to produce a flower and its organs

Speaker
Professor Gerco Angenent from Plant Research International, The Netherlands

Host
Allyson MacLean

02/11/2012
The Chatt Lecture – Posttranslational Cascades in the Biosynthesis of Thiazolyl Peptide Antibiotics

Speaker
Professor Christopher Walsh from Harvard Medical School

Host
Tony Maxwell

26/10/2012
How do proteins evolve?

Speaker
Professor Dan Tawfik from Dept Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science

Host
Paul O’Maille

28/09/2012
Pervasive transcription, lessons from budding yeast

Speaker
Dr Antonin Morillon from Institut Curie-CNRS, Paris, France

Host
Caroline Dean

21/09/2012
POSTPONED – seminar by Professor Wolf Frommer

Speaker
Professor Wolf Frommer from Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

14/09/2012
The Biffen Lecture – Patterning the maize leaf

Speaker
Professor Sarah Hake from Plant Gene Expression Center, USDA-ARS

Host
Xana Rebocho

07/09/2012
Caught in the Act – The Awakening and Demise of a Plant Retrotransposon: When, Where, How?

Speaker
Dr Olivier Voinnet from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Biology, Zurich

Host
Caroline Dean

29/06/2012
100 Years of the Vietnam Time Bomb: discovery of a lethal factor in Burkholderia

Speaker
Professor David Rice from Dept of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, University of Sheffield

Host
David Lawson

22/06/2012
Plant immuNOlogy: cracking the redox code

Speaker
Professor Gary Loake from School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Host
Graham McGrann

15/06/2012
The structural and functional diversity of polyploid wheat genome

Speaker
Dr Eduard Akhunov from Dept of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University

Host
Cristobal Uauy

01/06/2012
Exploring biological networks and pathways using yeast functional genomics

Speaker
Professor Brenda Andrews from University of Toronto

Host
Veronica Grieneisen

25/05/2012
Arrays of DNA binding sites as a tool for understanding gene regulation and adaptive mutagenesis

Speaker
Professor Narendra Maheshri from MIT, Cambridge, USA

Host
Scott Berry & Robert Ietswaart

18/05/2012
The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa – please note earlier time

Speaker
Professor Calestous Juma from Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Host
Alastair Skeffington

11/05/2012
The Darlington Lecture – RNA silencing and genome defense of plants

Speaker
Professor Sir David Baulcombe from Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

Host
Jonathan Jones

20/04/2012
Climate change and plant disease

Speaker
Professor Karen Garrett from Dept of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University

Host
Ruth Bryant

30/03/2012
Protein glycosylation: Pathways, processes and potential virulence targets

Speaker
Professor Barbara Imperiali from Department of Biology, MIT

Host
Sarah O’Connor

23/03/2012
Gene regulatory networks in Arabidopsis flower development

Speaker
Professor José Luis Riechmann from Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), Barcelona, Spain

Host
Susana Sauret-Gueto

09/03/2012
Dynamic organization of epithelia

Speaker
Professor Frank Julicher from Max Planck Institute, Dresden

Host
Martin Howard

02/03/2012
Wading through murky paddies: clarifying broad spectrum resistance in rice

Speaker
Professor Jan Leach from Plant Pathology, Colorado State University, USA

Host
Christopher Ridout

24/02/2012
CANCELLED – The root apex as headquarter for root branching

Speaker
Professor Tom Beeckman from VIB Dept Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

10/02/2012
The Hopwood Lecture – Resistance guided antibiotic discovery

Speaker
Dr Gerry Wright from Dept Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University

Host
Mark Buttner

03/02/2012
It takes two to tango: Hormones and transcription factors in shoot meristem control

Speaker
Professor Jan Lohmann from Department of Stem Cell Biology, University of Heidelberg

Host
Giles Oldroyd

27/01/2012
First time for everything: specification of stem cells in the early plant embryo

Speaker
Professor Dolf Weijers from Laboratory of Biochemistry, Wageningen University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

20/01/2012
Induced plant defences: from transcriptomics to community dynamics

Speaker
Professor Marcel Dicke from Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

13/01/2012
Molecular breeding of high value chemicals in novel crops: from hemp to artemisia

Speaker
Professor Ian Graham from Director of CNAP, Department of Biology, University of York

Host
Alison Smith

09/12/2011
Cloning and characterization of gene of agronomic importance from crops

Speaker
Dr Abdelhafid Bendahmane from Vice Director, URGV, France

Host
Myriam Charpentier

02/12/2011
Phenotypes phirst: Complex traits in complex environments

Speaker
Professor Thomas Mitchell-Olds from Biology Dept, Duke University

Host
James Brown

25/11/2011
Social movements in bacteria: mechanisms and evolution from genetics and cell biology

Speaker
Professor Tâm Mignot from CNRS, France

Host
Mark Buttner

11/11/2011
Patterning the female gametophyte of flowering plants, or How plants lay eggs

Speaker
Professor Venkatesan Sundaresan from College of Biological Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA

Host
Lars Ostergaard

04/11/2011
The Bateson Lecture – Development rooted in interwoven networks

Speaker
Professor Philip Benfey from Duke University, USA

Host
Veronica Grieneisen

28/10/2011
The Haldane Lecture – Crossing Scales

Speaker
Professor Simon Levin from Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

Host
Veronica Grieneisen

21/10/2011
Dissecting the co-evolutionary arms race (full title below)

Speaker
Professor David S Guttman from Depts of Cell & Systems Biology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biol, Toronto Un

Host
Cyril Zipfel

07/10/2011
More than a scaffold, HISTONES, master regulators of the genome activity

Speaker
Professor Frederic Berger from Temasek Life Sciences Lab

Host
Philip Wigge

30/09/2011
Inside bacterial cells: Where both chaos and order are actively pursued

Speaker
Professor Christine Jacobs-Wagner from Dept of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University

Host
Mark Buttner

23/09/2011
CANCELLED – Mechanisms of RNA-mediated viral defense in bacteria

Speaker
Professor Jennifer Doudna from Dept Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Host
David Lawson

09/09/2011
The secrets of a long life: FRUITFULL controls reproductive meristem arrest in Arabidopsis

Speaker
Dr Cristina Ferrandiz from Institute for Plant Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMCP)

Host
Susana Sauret-Gueto

08/07/2011
Type III secretions machines: bacterial devices for protein delivery into eukaryotic cells

Speaker
Professor Jorge Galan from Section of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University School of Medicine

Host
Mark Banfield

17/06/2011
Bacterial symbionts and the discovery of new molecules

Speaker
Professor Jon Clardy from Dept of Bio Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School

Host
David Lawson

10/06/2011
The ABCs of BRX – from natural genetic variation to mesoscopic modelling of root meristem growth

Speaker
Professor Christian Hardtke from Director, Dept Plant Molecular Biology, University of Lausanne

Host
Lars Ostergaard

27/05/2011
POSTPONED – The 2011 Chatt Lecture by Professor Jay Keasling

Speaker
Professor Jay Keasling from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

Host
Rob Field

20/05/2011
The Woolhouse Lecture – How does auxin do everything?

Speaker
Professor Mark Estelle from Cell & Developmental Biology, UCSD, USA

Host
Lars Ostergaard

13/05/2011
Building an embryo from the bottom up

Speaker
Professor Jeff Long from Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute

Host
Lars Ostergaard

06/05/2011
Microbial life on a leaf: Interactions of bacteria with themselves and the plants on which they live

Speaker
Professor Steven Lindow from Dept Plant & Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

08/04/2011
The Hopwood Lecture – Evolution and genomics of beneficial symbionts in insects

Speaker
Professor Nancy Moran from Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

01/04/2011
CANCELLED – Stress-induced cell flows reorient planar polarity in the wing epithelium of Drosophila

Speaker
Professor Suzanne Eaton from Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics

Host
Enrico Coen

25/03/2011
Rhomboids and iRhoms: intramembrane proteolysis and its regulation

Speaker
Dr Matthew Freeman from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Host
Phil Wigge

18/03/2011
CUL4-DDB1 is required to maintain epigenetic gene repression

Speaker
Dr Pascal Genschik from Director, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes du CNRS

Host
Cyril Zipfel

04/03/2011
The origins of evolutionary innovations

Speaker
Professor Andreas Wagner from Dept of Biochemistry, University of Zurich

Host
Erika Kuchen

25/02/2011
The bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes: a model or a reference?

Speaker
Professor Pascale Cossart from Pasteur Institute

Host
Allan Downie

18/02/2011
Xanthomonas TAL effectors in fundamental and applied research

Speaker
Professor Thomas Lahaye from Institute of Genetics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

Host
Jonathan Jones

11/02/2011
Chemical-biological analysis of dynamic biological systems

Speaker
Professor Herbert Waldmann from Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

Host
Rob Field

04/02/2011
Plant development: rooting shoots or shooting roots?

Speaker
Professor Ben Scheres from Dept of Biology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Host
Bas Rutjens

21/01/2011
Lateral root development: an emerging story……

Speaker
Professor Malcolm Bennett from Plant & Crop Sciences Div, University of Nottingham

Host
Lars Ostergaard

14/01/2011
Integration of environmental signals in host-pathogen co-evolution

Speaker
Professor Fernando Garcia-Arenal from Director, Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas UPM – INIA

Host
Andy Maule

10/12/2010
Immune recognition of fungi: the taste of a fungus

Speaker
Professor Neil Gow from Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen

Host
Sophien Kamoun

03/12/2010
Pathogenesis as a probe of innate immunity, jasmonate signaling, and vesicle traffic in Arabidopsis

Speaker
Professor Sheng-Yang He from DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University

Host
Dian Guan

26/11/2010
Predatory biology of Bdellovibrio- invader of other Gram negative bacteria

Speaker
Professor Elizabeth Sockett from School of Biology, University of Nottingham

Host
Emma Sherwood

19/11/2010
Yeasts: models to study the evolution of eukaryotic genomes

Speaker
Professor Bernard Dujon from Dept Genomes & Genetics, Institut Pasteur, France

Host
Sophien Kamoun

12/11/2010
Sugars and proteins

Speaker
Professor Ben Davis from Dept of Chemistry, University of Oxford

Host
Rob Field

05/11/2010
Chemical and genetic dissection of abscisic acid signaling

Speaker
Professor Sean Cutler from Center for Plant Cell Biology, University of California

Host
Giles Oldroyd

29/10/2010
Pathogens and commensals at epithelial surfaces: the Yin and the Yang of innate immunity

Speaker
Professor Philippe Sansonetti from Unité de pathogénie microbienne moléculaire, INSERM U786

Host
Cyril Zipfel

22/10/2010
The Bateson Lecture – Viral noncoding RNAs: Master manipulators of RNA decay

Speaker
Professor Joan Steitz from Yale University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

08/10/2010
The role of calcium, SFR6 and OXI1 in plant stress signalling

Speaker
Professor Marc Knight from School of Bio & Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham

Host
Ben Miller

01/10/2010
Natural variation for growth and response to the environment in Arabidopsis thaliana

Speaker
Dr Olivier Loudet from INRA, National Institute for Agricultural Research, Versailles

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

24/09/2010
The Darlington Lecture by Professor Eddy Rubin

Speaker
Professor Eddy Rubin from Director, Genomics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Host
Anne Osbourn

10/09/2010
From insect and plant defensins to lipopeptides and lantibiotics – natural compounds for antibiotics

Speaker
Professor Hans-Georg Sahl from Institute of Microbiology & Biotechnology, University of Bonn

Host
Merv Bibb

06/07/2010
Brachypodium distachyon: a new model for Fusarium Head Blight in wheat

Host
Andy Steed

29/06/2010
Remember yesterday – a plant cellular memory as factor for adaptation to environmental stress?

Speaker
Simone Altmann

Host
Andy Steed

25/06/2010
POSTPONED – The Haldane Lecture – Signal encoding at the single-cell level

Speaker
Professor Michael Elowitz from California Institute of Technology

Host
Martin Howard

22/06/2010
Functional genomics of aphid candidate effectors

Speaker
David Prince

Host
Andy Steed

18/06/2010
CANCELLED – Approaches to identifying novel plant cell wall metabolizing enzymes

Speaker
Professor Harry Gilbert from University of Georgia

Host
Sylviane Comparot

11/06/2010
Epigenetics and nuclear organization

Speaker
Professor Eric Richards from Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Cornell University

Host
Caroline Dean

04/06/2010
Science and technology in 21st century diplomacy

Speaker
Professor Nina Fedoroff from Science & Technology Advisor to Secretary of State, US Dept of State

Host
Jonathan Jones

28/05/2010
Scheduling developmental events and its impact on plant form

Speaker
Dr Yuval Eshed from Dept of Plant Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science

Host
Susana Sauret-Gueto

21/05/2010
A genomic code for nucleosome positioning from archaebacteria to man

Speaker
Professor Jonathan Widom from Northwestern University

Host
Tony Maxwell / Sandra Greive

14/05/2010
Function, diversity & evolution of Pm3-based disease resistance in wheat-powdery mildew pathosystem

Speaker
Professor Beat Keller from Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich

Host
Christopher Ridout

07/05/2010
Cyclic di-GMP signalling in bacterial life-style switching

Speaker
Professor Regine Hengge from Faculty of Biology – Department of Microbiology, Freie University Berlin

Host
Mark Buttner

30/04/2010
Crops FACE the future

Speaker
Professor Donald Ort from Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois

Host
Cathie Martin

23/04/2010
Molecular mechanism of plasmid segregation by ParMRC

Speaker
Dr Jan Lowe from Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council, Cambridge

Host
Mark Buttner

16/04/2010
New views of transcription regulation in vivo

Speaker
Dr Jon Lis from Cornell University, USA

Host
Phil Wigge

09/04/2010
The Biffen Lecture – Miserable but worth the trouble: Genomics, wheat and difficult environments

Speaker
Professor Peter Langridge from University of Adelaide, Australia

Host
John Snape

26/03/2010
The origins of plant pathogens in agro-ecosystems

Speaker
Professor Bruce McDonald from Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Host
James Brown

19/03/2010
Is there more to epigenetic gene repression than just histone modifications?

Speaker
Professor Wendy Bickmore from Chromosomes & Gene Expression Section, MRC Human Genetics Unit

Host
Anne Osbourn

12/03/2010
Mechanisms, rates and outcomes of local genome evolution in the grasses

Speaker
Dr Jeff Bennetzen from Dept of Genetics, University of Georgia

Host
Cristobal Uauy

05/03/2010
CANCELLED – Evolution of shoot development

Speaker
Professor Jane Langdale from Dept Plant Sciences, University of Oxford

Host
Mary Byrne

26/02/2010
Spring bread wheat improvement at CIMMYT to enhance productivity and sustainability of wheat in Asia

Speaker
Dr. Ravi Prakash Singh from Global Wheat Program, CIMMYT

Host
James Brown

12/02/2010
How smut fungi colonize plants: a tale of effectors

Speaker
Professor Regine Kahmann from Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology

Host
Jonathan Jones

05/02/2010
Subversion of plant cellular pathways by Ralstonia solanacearum type III effectors

Speaker
Dr Stephane Genin from INRA France

Host
Alexandre Robert-Seilaniantz

29/01/2010
Community proteogenomics reveals new insights into bacterial life on leaf surfaces

Speaker
Professor Julia Vorholt from Institute of Microbiology, EH Zurich

Host
Mark Buttner

22/01/2010
Discovery and mechanisms of small RNAs in bacterial pathogens

Speaker
Professor Joerg Vogel from Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

Host
Phil Poole

08/01/2010
CANCELLED: Plant development: rooting shoots or shooting roots?

Speaker
Professor Ben Scheres from Utrecht University

Host
Bas Rutjens

04/12/2009
Evolution of ancient agriculture and antibiotic use in ants

Speaker
Dr Cameron Currie from University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

27/11/2009
The remarkable diversity of the genes, the pathways and the microbes that make the smell of the seas

Speaker
Professor Andy Johnston from School of Biosciences, University of East Anglia

Host
Allan Downie

20/11/2009
The Chatt Lecture – Radically enhanced molecular recognition

Speaker
Professor Fraser Stoddart from Dept of Chemistry, Northwestern University, USA

Host
Steph Bornemann & Rob Field

13/11/2009
Using comparative development to understand diversification of leaf shape

Speaker
Prof Miltos Tsiantis from University of Oxford

Host
Sarah Robinson

06/11/2009
The Darlington Lecture – Linking chromosome replication and segregation

Speaker
Professor David Sherratt from Dept Biochemistry, University of Oxford

Host
Tony Maxwell

30/10/2009
Training a new type of biologist: the genome-enabled field biologist

Speaker
Professor Ian T Baldwin from Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

Host
Saskia Hogenhout

02/10/2009
Molecular control of cellular size: regulation of microtubule length by depolymerizing kinesins

Speaker
Professor Jonathon Howard from Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics

Host
Martin Howard

10/07/2009
DELLA-PIFs interaction: shedding light on control of hypocotyl elongation

Speaker
Dr Salome Prat from Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia, Spain

Host
Phil Wigge

26/06/2009
A Type I secreted, sulfated peptide triggers rice XA21-mediated innate immunity

Speaker
Professor Pamela Ronald from University of California, Davis

Host
Cristobal Uauy

19/06/2009
Why there is more to gene evolution than protein function: splicing, nucleosomes

Speaker
Professor Laurence Hurst from Dept of Biology & Biochemistry, University of Bath

Host
Anne Osbourn

12/06/2009
Plant and microbial natural products as cell biological probes

Speaker
Professor Craig Crews from Yale University, USA

Host
Rob Field

05/06/2009
Transcriptional regulation by the Polycomb/trithorax system

Speaker
Dr Juerg Mueller from European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany

Host
Sebastian Marquardt

22/05/2009
Cell biology and biochemistry of metals or The answer to life, the universe and everything

Speaker
Professor Ralf R Mendel from Braunschweig University of Technology

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

15/05/2009
Coupling transcription with chromatin and mRNA processing

Speaker
Professor Steven Buratowski from Harvard Medical School

Host
Sebastian Marquardt

08/05/2009
Life inside a rice cell; lessons from the blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae

Speaker
Dr Barbara Valent from Kansas State University

Host
Ane Sesma

01/05/2009
Hopwood Lecture – Natural microbial world as viewed through the lens of genomics & transcriptomics

Speaker
Professor Ed DeLong from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Host
Merv Bibb

17/04/2009
iPlant Collaborative

Speaker
Professor Richard Jorgensen from Dept Plant Sciences, University of Arizona

Host
Mike Bevan

27/03/2009
DNA translocation through a replicative hexameric helicase – one step at a time

Speaker
Dr Leemor Joshua-Tor from HHMI/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Host
Mary Byrne

20/03/2009
The Biffen Lecture – Gene flow and genetic isolation during crop evolution

Speaker
Professor Susan McCouch from Dept Plant Breeding & Genetics, Cornell University

Host
Graham Moore

13/03/2009
Bluetongue virus proteins: their roles in virus replication, assembly and egress

Speaker
Professor Polly Roy from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Host
George Lomonossoff

06/03/2009
Polyadenylation of mRNA precursors: Mechanism, regulation and integration with other cellular proces

Speaker
Professor James Manley from Columbia University, USA

Host
Sebastian Marquardt

27/02/2009
How bacterial effector proteins manipulate the plant host cell

Speaker
Professor Ulla Bonas from Institute for Biology/Genetics, Martin-Luther University

Host
Ane Sesma

20/02/2009
Cell division, chromatin and differentiation during Arabidopsis development

Speaker
Professor Crisanto Guteirrez from Centro de Biología Molecular, Spain

Host
Pedro Crevillen

13/02/2009
The intracellular biology of Salmonella

Speaker
Professor David Holden from Imperial College London

Host
Jonathan Jones

06/02/2009
Jasmonate signaling moves to the rhythm of JAZs

Speaker
Dr Roberto Solano from Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia-CSIC

Host
Monica Pernas Ochoa

30/01/2009
Cell-Cell communications during double fertilization

Speaker
Professor Ueli Grossniklaus from Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich

Host
Caroline Dean

23/01/2009
Rational peptide and protein design in nanoscience and synthetic biology

Speaker
Professor Dek Woolfson from University of Bristol

Host
Dave Evans

09/01/2009
Mycoviruses at the fungus-plant interface: New insights

Speaker
Dr Donald Nuss from University of Maryland, USA

Host
Andy Maule

12/12/2008
Discovering Delivering Yielding Latest developments in agricultural biotech

Speaker
Dr Robb Fraley from Monsanto Co

Host
Jonathan Jones

05/12/2008
Participatory biotechnology appraisals: principles, processes and practices

Speaker
Prof Jacquelin Burgess from School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Host
James Brown

28/11/2008
Unwinding the Biological Clock with Systems Biology

Speaker
Prof Andrew Millar from University of Edinburgh

Host
Jonathan Jones

21/11/2008
Woolhouse Lecture – Seasonal control of flowering in annual & perennial plants

Speaker
Dr George Coupland from Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Host
Jonathan Jones

14/11/2008
Auxin transport – connecting cell polarity and patterning

Speaker
Dr Jiri Friml from Centre for Plant Molecular Biology, Ghent University

Host
Lars Ostergaard

07/11/2008
Diverse mechanisms for gene control by riboswitches

Speaker
Dr Ron Breaker from Yale University, USA

Host
Ray Dixon

31/10/2008
Role of ion channels in plants

Speaker
Professor Rainer Hedrich from University of Wuerzburg, Germany

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

24/10/2008
Probing enzymology of O-GlcNAc, intracellular glycosylation of plants and mammal

Speaker
Professor Gideon Davies from University of York

Host
Duncan Stanley

17/10/2008
Self-renewal and differentiation in the Drosophila nervous system

Speaker
Professor Andrea Brand from Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Institute, Cambridge, UK

Host
Mary Byrne

03/10/2008
The cytoskeleton in growth and pathogenicity of the fungus Ustilago maydis

Speaker
Professor Gero Steinberg from University of Exeter

Host
Anne Osbourn

26/09/2008
The evolution of segmentation mechanisms in animals

Speaker
Professor Michael Akam from Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge

Host
Lars Ostergaard

19/09/2008
Physcomitrella genome adds a 500 million year perspective to plant biology

Speaker
Professor Ralf Reski from Plant Biotechnology, University of Freiburg

Host
Stan Kopriva

12/09/2008
Climate change, plant systematics, conservation: Kew’s Breathing Planet Programe

Speaker
Professor Stephen Hopper from Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK

Host
Mary Byrne

11/07/2008
Histone variant dynamics and epigenetics

Speaker
Dr Steven Henikoff from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle

Host
Caroline Dean

04/07/2008
Building the cereal inflorescence, signals, architecture and yield

Speaker
Professor David Jackson from Cold Spring Harbor Lab, USA

Host
Mary Byrne

27/06/2008
Patterning genes in land plants

Speaker
Prof John L Bowman from School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne

Host
Mary Byrne

20/06/2008
Cell death & acclimation. The genetic basis of singlet oxygen-mediated signaling

Speaker
Professor Klaus Apel from Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Ithaca

Host
Stan Kopriva

06/06/2008
The Darlington Lecture – Ensembl and ENCODE; understanding genomes

Speaker
Dr Ewan Birney from EMBL, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK

Host
Philip Wigge

30/05/2008
Structural studies of biological macromolecules in solutions

Speaker
Dr Dmitri Svergun from EMBL Hamburg

Host
Stephen Bornemann

23/05/2008
Ionomics discovery using induced and natural variation in Arabidopsis thaliana

Speaker
Professor David Salt from Purdue University, USA

Host
Stan Kopriva

16/05/2008
The Biffen Lecture – Propagating silent heterochromatin with RNA interference

Speaker
Professor Rob Martienssen from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA

Host
Mary Byrne

09/05/2008
Conserved roles of small RNAs in genome defense

Speaker
Professor Greg Hannon from Cold Spring Harbour

Host
Jonathan Jones

02/05/2008
Evolution of novel forms in grass inflorescences

Speaker
Dr Elizabeth Kellogg from Dept of Biology, University of Missouri, St Louis

Host
Mary Byrne

25/04/2008
A biomechanical and allometric perspective on plant evolution and ecology

Speaker
Professor Karl J Niklas from Cornell University

Host
Freddy Cook

18/04/2008
The Chatt Lecture – Chromatin structure and remodeling factor interaction

Speaker
Prof. Timothy J. Richmond from Institute for Molecular Biology & Bio, ETH Zurich

Host
Stephen Bornemann

11/04/2008
L-form bacteria revisited in the molecular era

Speaker
Professor Jeff Errington from Newcastle University, UK

Host
Student Voice Committee

04/04/2008
Bateson Lecture – Role of cis-regulatory sequences in evolution of animal form

Speaker
Professor Sean B Carroll from University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Host
Chris Lamb

28/03/2008
Evolution of Rhizobium Nod factor signalling

Speaker
Dr Rene Geurts from Wageningen University

Host
Allan Downie

14/03/2008
Unraveling the pathways for carbohydrate synthesis in plant secondary cell wall

Speaker
Professor Simon Turner from Faculty of Life Science, University of Manchester

Host
Rob Field

07/03/2008
How to move DNA within and between bacterial cells

Speaker
Professor Peter Graumann from University of Freiburg, Germany

Host
Mark Buttner

29/02/2008
Chromatin modifications and their function

Speaker
Professor Tony Kouzarides from The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, UK

Host
Rob Field

22/02/2008
Sculpting oxygen sensing and foraging: behavioral evolution in C. elegans

Speaker
Dr Mario de Bono from MRC Lab of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Host
Phil Wigge

15/02/2008
Role of polySUMO chains as a signal for ubiquitin mediated proteolysis

Speaker
Professor Ron T Hay from University of Dundee, UK

Host
Rob Field

08/02/2008
Reconstructing the biosynthetic history of divergent plant sesquiterpene synthas

Speaker
Professor Joseph Noel from The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California, USA

Host
Cathie Martin

01/02/2008
POSTPONED – Unwinding the biological clock with systems biology

Speaker
Professor Andrew Millar from University of Edinburgh

Host
Jonathan Jones

25/01/2008
POSTPONED – Towards understanding evolution of leaf development programmes

Speaker
Dr Miltos Tsiantis from University of Oxford

Host
Sarah Robinson

23/01/2008
seminar by Professor Dek Woolfson

Speaker
Professor Dek Woolfson from University of Bristol

Host
Dave Evans

18/01/2008
Biomass and Biofuels: status, promise, challenges and research directions

Speaker
Dr Ralph P. Overend from Chief Scientist NextBT LLC, formerly Research Fellow NREL

Host
Kay Denyer

11/01/2008
Phylogeny and character evolution in the wild and wonderful nightshade family

Speaker
Dr Sandra Knapp from Natural History Museum, UK

Host
Jonathan Jones

30/11/2007
Biomass and biofuel: tackling the challenges ahead

Speaker
Dr Angela Karp from Plant Biodiversity & Population Genetics, Rothamsted Research

Host
Claire Domoney

23/11/2007
Activation of virtual rice transposable elements in Arabidopsis and Yeast

Speaker
Professor Sue Wessler from University of Georgia, USA

Host
Jonathan Jones

16/11/2007
Structural variation, disease and evolution of the human genome

Speaker
Dr Evan Eichler from University of Washington, USA

Host
Mike Bevan

09/11/2007
Glycosylation of small molecules

Speaker
Professor Dianna Bowles from University of York, UK

Host
Anne Osbourn

02/11/2007
Transcriptional and signaling networks in stomatal development

Speaker
Dr Dominique Bergmann from Assistant Professor of Biological Science, Stanford University

Host
Cyril Zipfel

26/10/2007
CANCELLED – seminar by Prof Jens Stougaard has been postponed to later date

Speaker
Professor Jens Stougaard from University of Aarhus, Denmark

Host
Allan Downie

26/10/2007
Developmental Plasticity in the Legume Root

Speaker
Dr Martin Crespi from Institut des Sciences du Végétal-CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, Paris

Host
Allan Downie

19/10/2007
The Hopwood Lecture – Outer membrane biogenesis in Gram-negative bacteria

Speaker
Professor Thomas Silhavy from Princeton University, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

05/10/2007
Biosynthesis of lantibiotics, complex macrocylic thioethers

Speaker
Prof Wilfred van der Donk from University of Illinois, USA

Host
Mervyn Bibb

28/09/2007
Mapping regulatory networks and signal transduction pathwasy in bacteria

Speaker
Dr Michael Laub from MIT, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

21/09/2007
CANCELLED – Seminar by Professor Karl-Heinz Kogel

Speaker
Professor Karl-Heinz Kogel from University of Giessen, Germany

Host
James Brown

20/07/2007
The Haldane Lecture – Lean or fat: control of energy homeostasis in animals

Speaker
Professor Herbert Jaeckle from Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

Host
Cathie Martin

13/07/2007
From automated oligosaccharide synthesis and carbohydrate arrays

Speaker
Prof Peter Seeberger from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich

Host
Rob Field

06/07/2007
Making recombinant proteins in plants – new generation expression technologies

Speaker
Professor Yuri Gleba from Icon Genetics GmbH

Host
Stanislav Kopriva

29/06/2007
Antibiotic resistance: the inner workings of the multidrug efflux pump AcrB

Speaker
Dr Klaas Martinus Pos from University of Zurich

Host
Mike Merrick

22/06/2007
CANCELLED: A biomechanical and allometric perspective on plant evolution

Speaker
Professor Karl J Niklas from Cornell University

Host
Jenny Bowers

15/06/2007
Haplotype diversity and meiotic recombination in maize

Speaker
Professor Hugo Dooner from Waksman Institute, Rutgers University, USA

Host
Jonathan Jones

08/06/2007
Structural Mechanisms underlying the oxidative stress response in Bacillus

Speaker
Professor Richard Brennan from UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

01/06/2007
Lipid-Protein Interactions as Determinants of Membrane Protein Topology

Speaker
Professor William Dowhan from University of Texas-Houston, USA

Host
Tracy Palmer

25/05/2007
Systems approaches to understanding circadian clocks

Speaker
Dr Steve Kay from The Scripps Research Institute

Host
Jonathan Jones

11/05/2007
Introgression line resolution of complex traits in tomato

Speaker
Dr Dani Zamir from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Host
Jonathan Jones

04/05/2007
Hopping, jumping and sliding along DNA by proteins targeting specific DNA

Speaker
Prof Steve Halford from University of Bristol

Host
Olivier Pierrat

27/04/2007
Tales of transposons

Speaker
Professor Nancy Craig from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baltimore, USA

Host
Tony Maxwell

20/04/2007
Platforms, motors and springs: virus particles as reagents for nanotechnology

Speaker
Prof Jack Johnson from The Scripps Research Institute

Host
George Lomonossoff

13/04/2007
RNA silencing and plant abiotic stress responses

Speaker
Professor Jian-Kang Zhu from University of California, Riverside, USA

Host
Caroline Dean

30/03/2007
From heaven’s door to hell’s gate: pathogen entry and immune response mechanisms

Speaker
Professor Paul Schulze-Lefert from Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Host
Cyril Zipfel

23/03/2007
From glycosidase mechanisms to new proteomic probes of enzymes

Speaker
Professor Stephen Withers from Chemistry Department, UBC

Host
Stephen Bornemann

16/03/2007
Winding up the cyanobacterial circadian clock

Speaker
Professor Susan Golden from Texas A&M University, USA

Host
Mark Buttner

09/03/2007
Epigenetic control by histone methylation

Speaker
Prof Thomas Jenuwein from Research Institute of Molecular Pathology

Host
David Baulcombe

02/03/2007
Twist, tilt and turn – how mechanosensitive channels fire to relieve stress

Speaker
Professor Ian Booth from Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen

Host
Professor Ray Dixon

23/02/2007
CANCELLED – Shedding light on glycans

Speaker
Professor Carolyn Bertozzi from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Host
Rob Field

16/02/2007
X-chromosome inactivation – a model system for epigenetic changes in development

Speaker
Professor Edith Heard from Curie Institute, Paris, France

Host
Robert Sablowski

09/02/2007
Microbial signaling behavior in the Vibrio fischeri-squid beneficial association

Speaker
Professor Ned Ruby from University of Wisconsin, USA

Host
Mark Buttner