Professor Lacey Samuels presents: Diverse mechanisms of cell wall secretion
1pm Thursday 13th October in the Plant Research Centre Auditorium
The Harold Woolhouse Lecture is named in honour of the former Director of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute. Professor Woolhouse finished his PhD at the University of Adelaide before spending much of his early career (during the 1960s and 1970s) researching heavy metals and senescence. Between 1980 and 1989, Professor Woolhouse developed and directed the world class plant biology research facility, the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, United Kingdom. In 1990, he became Director of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute and was responsible for the co-location of the South Australian Research and Development Institute and Primary Industries and Resources South Australia on the Waite Campus. He also masterminded the merging of Roseworthy Agricultural College with the University of Adelaide. He left Adelaide in August 1995 due to ill health and passed away in June 1996.
This year the Harold Woolhouse Lecture will be given by Professor Lacey Samuels on Thursday 13th October in the Plant Research Centre Auditorium.
Professor Samuels has a B.Sc. in Honours Neurobiology from McGill University in Montreal, and a Ph.D. in Botany, from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC., Canada. She did post-doctoral studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA and at UBC Vancouver, where she became an Assistant Professor in 2000. Research in the Samuels laboratory focuses on biosynthesis of plant cell walls, both cell wall polysaccharides as well as specialized cell wall components, such as lipidic waxes on the plant surface and lignin in wood. The approach is to integrate advanced microscopy techniques with molecular biology and biochemistry to put cell wall biosynthesis and secretion into a cellular context.
Professor Samuels was Head of the UBC Botany department from 2011-2016, and is the current co-Institutional Leader of the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning at UBC.