Lecture
This Week’s Discoveries | 3 April 2018
- José Mogollón
- Monica Bettencourt Dias
- Date
- Tuesday 3 April 2018
- Time
- Location
-
Oort
Niels Bohrweg 2
2333 CA Leiden - Room
- Sitterzaal
First Lecture
Title
Is sustainable agriculture an inherent contradiction?
Speaker
José Mogollón, (CML)
José is an Assistant Professor at the CML. His main research drive is to understand the role of humans on the Earth system, especially in order to find solutions to ameliorate the increasing anthropogenic footprint on the environment.
Abstract
The industrial revolution brought forth not just a major change in global manufacturing and economic output, but also led to a massive population boom that has continued into present times. In order to sustain this growth, agricultural output has drastically increased throughout the globe both in terms of cropland areas and cropland production. With an expected population increase from today's 7.6 billion up to 8.5-10 billion by 2050, agricultural production sees no sign of slowing down in the near future. In this talk I will discuss the challenges of working toward the goal of feeding the global population and the challenges that this poses for the global environment.
Second Lecture, Lorentz Center highlight
Title
The centrioles, tiny cellular structures playing critical roles in proliferation, motility and communication
Speaker
Monica Bettencourt Dias (IGC)
Monica is professor and head of the Cell Cycle Regulation group of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal and director of IGC. She is interested in general principles in biology regarding the counting and assembling of complex subcellular structures, and their variations observed during development, in disease and evolution. Her group studies the regulation of cell proliferation with an emphasis on centrioles and cilia. Monica is participating in the workshop “Evolution of Biomolecular Networks: Rules of the Game” that is being held in the Lorentz Center from 3 April through 6 April.
Abstract
In this seminar I will talk about centrioles, structures that were discovered more than one century ago, which have remained mysterious until recently. I will talk about their role and unique properties: how cells ensure their number is always correct, how this is deregulated in cancer, and how cells maintain or destroy centrioles depending on the tissue type.