Rural Roots

The first of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum’s Autumn Science Lectures is with Professor Sophien Kamoun. In his talk, ‘Keeping up with the Plant Killers’, Sophien will introduce you to the secret life of the parasites that colonize plants. Ever since Heinrich Anton de Bary called the microbe that causes the potato blight a plant killer, we have learned much about how these microbes cause disease and fight off the plant immune system. Some of these plant pathogens even turn their plant hosts into living puppets or Zombie plants. Others are threatening our crops and driving the global food crisis. Plant pathologists like Sophien Kamoun are hard at work learning more about these parasites and applying new knowledge and technologies to build disease-resistant crops.

The lecture series will run every other Thursday at 7pm for free and all lectures will be hosted online.