By:
Patti Bartlett

Source(s):
Chris Somerville crs@andrew2.stanford.edu, 650-325-1521 ext.203
Chris Waddill ctwaddill@mail.ifas.ufl.edu 352-392-1671

GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Chris Somerville, director of the plant biology department at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and a professor at Stanford University in California, will be the featured speaker Sept. 24 in the University of Florida’s Sesquicentennial Celebration Lecture Series.

Somerville’s presentation on the future of plant genetic engineering will be at 7:30 p.m. in Powell Hall at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Christine Waddill, dean for extension with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, invited Somerville to speak in Gainesville because of his pioneering work in plant genetics.

Somerville has published more than 150 research articles in the general area of plant molecular genetics and biotechnology. He was an early advocate of the use of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and was a member of the international team that completed the genome sequence of Arabidopsis in 2000. His research has been largely focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that control accumulation of storage products and structural polymers in plants.

He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. He is also a founder and chairman of Mendel Biotechnology, a small plant biotechnology company in the San Francisco bay area.

Somerville’s professional honors include the Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award, the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Charles F. Schull Award and the Gibbs Medal from the American Society of Plant Physiology.

Somerville received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and his doctorate in genetics from the University of Alberta.

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