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Report 1:
Quantifying phenotypes in 3D: applications of X-ray CT to plant & animal science
Reported by: Dr. Christy Hipsley
Australian Research Council Fellow
School of Biosciences,
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia
Email: christy.hipsley @ unimelb.edu.au
Report time: 9:30 am, October 28, 2019 (Monday)
Venue: Shu Hua multi functional hall, College of life science and technology
Contact person: Zhang Dabing
Personnel Information:
Christy Hipsley received her PhD in 2012 from the University of California, USA, followed by a German Research Foundation-funded postdoc at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Since 2015, Christy has worked as an Australian Research Council Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Research Associate at Museums Victoria, where she uses their vast specimen collections to reconstruct Australia’s evolutionary past. Her current research focuses on the long-term impacts of climate change in the Australian fossil record, by measuring variation in lizard and frog communities over geological time. X-ray computed tomography (CT) combined with geometric morphometrics is a commonly used approach in Christy’s toolkit, with her images being featured in international museum exhibitions, children’s science programs, The New York Times, and BBC.
For further information see: http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/hipsleylab/
Abstract:
The past two decades have seen a revolution in digital imaging techniques for the non-destructive sampling of biological material. These approaches offer an unprecedented view of internal and external features of whole objects, providing a wealth of new data for scientific research. X-ray computed tomography, or CT (similar to CAT scanning), has become one of the primary tools for interacting with biological specimens, be it fresh tissue, ethanol-preserved organisms or ancient mineralised fossils. In this talk I will describe the discovery and applications of X-ray radiation in scientific research, using examples from my own career. These include published studies of carnivorous marsupials, the first recorded marine extinction, insect reproduction, limb loss in lizards, and skeletal development. Finally I will end with a demonstration of how this technique can be applied to plants, by CT scanning tissues such as fruits, nuts, thick roots, wooden structures and even flowers, for the quantification of complex phenotypes in 3D.
References:
Chaplin K, Sumner J, Hipsley CA, Melville J. 2019. An integrative approach using phylogenomics and high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT) for species delimitation in cryptic taxa. Systematic Biology (in press).
Hipsley CA, Sherratt E. 2019. Psychology, not technology, is our biggest challenge to open digital morphology data. Scientific Data 6:41.
Feigin CY, Newton AH, Doronina L, Schmitz J, Hipsley CA, Mitchell KJ, Gower G, Llamas B, Soubrier J, Heider TN, Menzies BR, Cooper A, O’Neill RJ, Pask AJ. 2018. Genome of the Tasmanian Tiger provides insights into the evolution and demography of an extinct marsupial carnivore. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2:182-192.
Newton AH, Frantisek S, Prochazka J, Black JR, Medlock K, Paddle RN, Hipsley CA*, Pask AJ*. 2018. Letting the “cat” out of the bag: pouch young development of the extinct Tasmanian tiger revealed by X- ray computed tomography. Royal Society Open Science 5:171914. 24. *Joint senior authors
Hipsley CA, Müller J. 2017. Developmental dynamics of ecomorphological convergence in a transcontinental lizard radiation. Evolution 71:936–948.
Report 2:
Cell wall synthesis in land plants; a focus on how plants make cellulose
Reported by: Dr. Staffan Persson
Professor
School of Biosciences,
University of MelbourneParkville,
VIC, Australia
Email: staffan.persson @ unimelb.edu.au
Report time: 10:30 am, October 28, 2019 (Monday)
Venue: Shu Hua multi functional hall, College of life science and technology
Contact person: Zhang Dabing
Personnel Information:
Staffan Persson completed his PhD in Dec, 2003, which was a joint degree between Lund University (Sweden) and North Carolina State University (US). He then pursued a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford University 2004-2007. Staffan was appointed as a Max-Planck Group Leader at the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam in 2008, where he stayed until 2014. Since Jan 2015 Staffan is a R@MAP Professor and an ARC Future Fellow (level 3) at the School of BioSciences at University of Melbourne. He is a Thomson Reuter/Web of Science highly cited researcher 2016 and 2017. The research in his group aims at understanding how plants are producing cellulose, which is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth and that is a raw material for many applications in our society.
For further information see: http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/persson-lab/
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