Public Forum on "Symmetry, shapes and colour In biology" 

Jointly organised by the Singapore Institute of Biology & National Library Board

Saturday 22 Sep 07, 9am - 12:30 pm
Possibility Room, Level 5, National Library (100 Victoria Street) 

Programme

Titles, Abstracts and Biographies of Speakers

Speaker 1. Dr. Yu Hao

Building Beauty: What Underlies Floral Patterning?
Dr. Yu Hao
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore 

Abstract:

Flowering plants are used as food and medicine resources in human history. Flowers are not only the most attractive tissues in flowering plants, but also bear the production of seeds and fruits, upon which other organisms including humans depend. With the advent of molecular biology in the last two decades, intensive investigations of flower development have gradually revealed the underlying mechanism of floral organ formation. This talk will discuss recent progress in our understanding of floral patterning, and its biotechnological applications.

Biography:

Dr Yu Hao is the Assistant Professor of Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore and the Principle Investigator of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory. Dr Yu obtained a Ph.D degree in Plant Molecular Biology from NUS, and a Master’s degree in Environmental Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemical Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University. He did postdoctoral research in California Institute of Technology. 

Dr Yu’s research focuses on the understanding of molecular mechanisms by which transcription factors control other sub-regulatory or structural genes in cell identity establishment and genetic engineering of economically important crops.

With the gene resources from the fundamental research, Dr Yu has pioneered the creation of various genetic transformation systems for manipulating floral traits of orchids, which is a major economically important crop in Singapore. 

The results from Dr Yu’s research have been published in more than twenty articles in international refereed journals, such as Nature, Nature Genetics, Plant Cell, PNAS, and Development. Dr Yu was invited to review and edit for more than eight international refereed journals and publications, and invited to speak at international conferences. He was the recipient of Gold medal of International Society of Plant Molecular Biology (ISPMB) for outstanding Ph.D thesis in 2001.

In recognition of his scientific contributions, Dr Yu Hao was awarded the Young Scientist Award 2006 by the Singapore National Academy of Science and NUS Young Researcher Award 2007. For his scientific excellence and dedication to youths, Dr Yu Hao was also conferred the Singapore Youth Award 2007 for Science and Technology.

Speaker 2. Dr. Yam Tim Wing 

Abstract
Pollination is a process whereby pollens are transferred from the anther to the stigma. Most orchids are cross-pollinated, requiring some pollinators (such as ants, bees, beetles, wasps, moths, butterflies, flies, and birds) to transfer the pollen from one plant to another. They have many extremely complex and ingenious pollination mechanisms to ensure effective and efficient pollination. In this lecture, we shall look at some of them are pollinated.

Biography
Dr Yam Tim Wing has been a Senior Research Officer at the Singapore Botanic Gardens since 1991, in charge of the orchid breeding program which involves   vandaceous orchids, Dendrobium and other hybrids for lowland tropics. He also administers a program designed to conserve the native orchids of Singapore by propagating and introducing these species into natural areas in the country. Dr Yam is a part time lecturer teaching genetics and plant breeding and is a frequent speaker at international orchid conferences. He is also the author of “Orchids of the Singapore Botanic Gardens”, a book published by the National Parks Board.

Speaker 3.  Dr. Peter Todd 

Colour for Camouflage and Communication in Rocky Shore and Mangrove Crabs
Peter Alan Todd
Instructor, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore

Abstract
On an imaginary scale of animal conspicuousness, camouflage and communication represent opposite ends. At one end (camouflage) the animal does not want to be seen, at the other (communication) it does. Colour, shape and symmetry all have roles to play on this scale but, in this talk, I shall focus on how colour is used for camouflage in the European shore crab (Carcinus maenas) and communication in two local species of mangrove crab (Perisesarma eumolpe and Perisesarma indiarum).

Biography
Peter Todd graduated from the University of North London in 1997 with a first class honours degree in Ecological Sciences.  After a year as Science and Education Officer for an environmental NGO he embarked upon a Ph.D. programme in the Department of Geography, NUS, completing his thesis “Small-scale intraspecific morphological variation, symmetry and plasticity in scleractinian corals around Singapore” in May 2002. Dr Todd’s first academic post was part-time Lecturer at Napier University, Scotland, where he taught the MSc course in Wildlife Biology and Conservation.  During this time his research focus shifted to camouflage in the shore crab Carcinus maenas.  In late 2004 he came back to take up his present position of Instructor in the Department of Biological Sciences, NUS.  Since returning to Singapore, Dr Todd has taken an interest in giant clams, thus his research portfolio is now alliteratively “corals, crabs and clams.”  He continues to study plasticity in corals, but also examines colours as signals in mangrove crabs and works on giant clam behaviour, functional morphology and conservation.  He has a passion for tackling “why” questions about the natural world and enjoys the challenge of designing, building and implementing investigations to find the answers!

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