Professor B.A. Abeywickrema

We have been informed by Rohan H. Wickramasinghe of the passing away in May 2011 of Emeritus Professor B.A. Abeywickrema, who was a member of Clare College and earned
his Ph.D. from the Department of Botany in 1946. Professor Abeywickrema had
a distinguished career in the academic world in Sri Lanka and was much
respected by all who knew him.

Obituaries in The Island newspaper:
by Dr Rohan H. Wickramasinghe
by Dr U Pethiyagoda

Neil Dalchau awarded 2011 Tansley Medal

The 2011 Tansley Medal has been awarded to Neil Dalchau from Microsoft Research, Cambridge. Neil has made important discoveries that provide invaluable insights into the regulation of the circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana using a combination of mathematical modeling and experimental intervention. Most revealing among these has been the demonstration that components of the circadian clock are sensitive to sucrose and that the GIGANTIA gene is essential for its perception (Dalchau et al., 2011).

Neil was a graduate student in the Signal Transduction Group with Dr Alex Webb.

Read more.

Three articles in Research Horizons magazine

Under the Microscope #5 – Daisy
In this video Dr Beverley Glover explains how a daisy is a collection of tiny flowers grouped together to make it look like a single big flower. Read more.

Flower power: how to get ahead in advertising
Some plants go to extraordinary lengths to attract pollinators. A unique collaboration between plant scientists and physicists is revealing the full extent of botanical advertising. Read more.

Canopy commerce: forest conservation and poverty alleviation
Innovative approaches for protecting the future of Sierra Leone's Gola Forest - globally important for its biodiversity and its carbon reserves - are being developed by a collaboration of conservation agencies and University of Cambridge researchers. Read more.

Pioneering patent granted

A new patent granted in the USA is based on work from the group of David Baulcombe. It describes the use of short RNA molecules to silence gene expression in plants and animals and has potential application in biomedical and agricultural biotechnology.


http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/research-technologies/2012/120124-n-pbl-issued-with-pioneering-patent.aspx?utm_source=MailingManager&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BBSRCNewsFeb2012