Mining and editing plant and animal genomes to improve global food security - scientific progress and ethical dilemmas

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The highly successful Science in Health Public Lecture Series is now in its sixteenth year and attracts a diverse audience of interested individuals including the public, secondary school pupils and professionals

The lectures are FREE to attend, no booking is required. There will be opportunities for sixth-form students to meet with some of the speakers before the lectures.

In this lecture Professor Denis Murphy, University of South Wales, presents his lecture: Mining and editing plant and animal genomes to improve global food security - scientific progress and ethical dilemmas.

We live in an age of so-called ‘big data’ where huge amounts of information are stored about many aspects of our lives.

In our research, we use data mining to decipher the genetic codes of important crop plants, including the oil palm which produces an edible oil that feeds over two billion people across the world, including most of you. We aim to increase oil palm yields to avoid the need for converting tropical rainforests to farmland.

We also use our knowledge of plant and animal genomes to ‘edit’ key genes in order to produce new varieties of crops and livestock that are healthier, higher yielding and producing better quality food for a rapidly growing world population.

There will be a question and answer session at the end of the lecture - questions are welcomed in both English and Welsh.

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