Life on the Molecular Scale

Brewer's yeast makes life delicious - beer, wine, cider, sake, bread and doughnuts wouldn't be the same without it. My talk will explore what the genetics of these microscopic brewers can tell us about the past, present and future of beer.

If you’ve ever looked at a seed then perhaps, like me, you’ve marvelled at how these little brown specks give rise to the base of the entire food web. As both a plant scientist and an avid gardener, nothing fascinates me more than how plants grow into complex and beautiful forms, capable of harvesting sunlight and carbon from to air to produce sugars. In this talk I will share our current understanding of a few key points in a plant’s journey from seed to sugar-making machine, as well as considering some of the remaining mysteries of plant growth and development.

Since the XIX century, we (or the main part of us) have been thinking that Darwin´s evolutionary theory was the only true. Genetics and natural selection did the work and gave us an explanation about evolution. That was complicated enough but now, what is this new word of “epigenetics”? It seems to be magic! Trying to make sense by the use of terms like adaptation, DNA, nucleus, chromatin, gene expression… make it so confusing! If you want to finally understand it without the need of 3 PhDs in the best universities of the world just have a pint with us!