Scientific program

Mike Black Founders Lecture: Marianna AS Artur

"Plant desiccation tolerance: Surviving in a drying world"

Dr. Mariana Silva Artur did her PhD at Wageningen University (WUR) from 2014 to 2018 where she studied the evolution and molecular physiology of desiccation tolerance in seeds and resurrection plants. In 2020 she received a personal grant (NWO-Veni Talent Program) to investigate the regulation of desiccation tolerance in seeds with a focus on LEA proteins. She is also a postdoctoral researcher in the Seeds for the Future Initiative of the Wageningen Seed Science Centre, where she is contributing with teaching, training and bridging fundamental and applied seed research.

Alfred Meyer Plenary Lecture: Steven Footitt

 "Seeds as climate adapted environmental sensors"

Dr Steven Footitt obtained his doctorate (1992) in the USA, at Louisiana State University, where he worked with the late Prof. Marc Cohn on the mechanism of chemical induced dormancy breaking in rice seeds. For 15 years, he has worked first with Prof Bill Finch-Savage and now with his own group on how seeds in the field use changes in their environment to cycle their dormancy levels to time seedling emergence at the optimum time of year for seedling survival. Of particular interest is the identification of climate adapted genes that determine different seedling emergence times in winter and summer annual ecotypes of Arabidopsis.

J Derek Bewley Career Lecture: Hugh Pritchard

 "A life in the SCIENCES"

Hugh W. Pritchard is one of the Founding Trustees of ISSS. He spent 40 years as a scientific researcher and manager at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Wakehurst. He led a seed (conservation / biology / science) research group for 25 years, provided guidance on the research programme of the Millennium Seed Bank Project for 17 years and served on Kew’s Senior Science Team for 8 years. He is now full professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming Institute of Botany. In his ISSS2023 J Derek Bewley Career Lecture lecture he will recall “A life in the SCIENCES.” He will cover the diverse topics of ‘Seminars,’ ‘Conservation,’ ‘Intended and unintended consequences,’ ‘Entrepreneurship,’ ‘Networking and negotiating,’ ‘Cryo science,’ ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Superannuation.’

Keynote Speakers

GLOBAL CHANGE, ADAPTATION AND SEED ECOLOGY