– Part of the CDA Spring Lecture Series.

Speaker: Ralph Bock

Professor and Director, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (Germany)

Join us in the auditorium between building 2 and 3

or on Zoom

Theme

The many facets of chloroplasts – hosted by Dr. Juan Camilo Moreno Beltran.

Abstract

In his talk, Bock will describe experimental approaches to study genome evolution in real time. He will discuss three fundamental processes in eukaryotic genome evolution and show how they can be reconstructed in laboratory experiments: (i) the transfer of organellar (plastid and mitochondrial) genes to the nuclear genome, (ii) the horizontal movement of organellar DNA between plants, and (iii) the travel of nuclear genetic material between plants by horizontal genome transfer. He will describe the current knowledge about the underlying mechanisms, and discuss the role of gene and genome transfer events in the generation of natural diversity and in the formation of new species. Finally, he will show how horizontal gene transfer can be employed as a versatile tool in plant biotechnology and synthetic biology.

About the speaker

Ralph Bock is Professor and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. His research team uses a wide range of cutting-edge techniques to investigate cell organelles and their interaction with the nucleus, develops tools for biotechnology and synthetic biology, and explores mechanisms of genome evolution and speciation. Bock is a member of the National Academy of Science (Leopoldina), a member of EMBO, and a Highly Cited Researcher. In 2017, he received the Martin Gibbs Medal of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) for his pioneering work on experimental evolution. He is senior editor of Plant Cell, and editorial board member of Plant Biotechnology Journal and Molecular Plant.