Conferences & Workshops
August 3-7, 2019
Speaking at ASPB Annual Plant Biology 2019 San Jose, California
1-3 July 2019
Tutor at Gatsby Plant Science Summer School
1 April 2019
Attending the Molecular Plant Biology Symposium Department of Biosciences, Durham University
27 - 29 November 2018
Attending SERDP & ESTCP Symposium 2018: Enhancing DoD's Mission Effectiveness
"A three-day symposium showcasing the latest technologies that enhance DoD’s mission through improved environmental and energy performance."
1 - 5 October 2018
Speaking at the 15th International Phytotechnology Conference: Phytotechnologies and Forestry: Sustainable Approaches to Mitigating the Environmental Consequences of Climate Change - Novi Sad, Serbia
Great meeting - inspiring talks, useful networking and pretty good representation from around the world.
6th September 2017
Gatsby Plant Science network meeting Queen's college, Oxford
"Advancing Knowledge in Fundamental Plant Biology, and Nurturing Talent Among Young Scientists"
Check out their awesome Summer School for first year undergrads.
15 - 19 July 2018
Speaking at the 14th International Symposium on Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity and Biotechnology
The Symposium continues a tradition of informal scientific discussions and lectures that has seen the community meet in Germany, Japan, U.S.A, France, Denmark, Wales, Italy and Canada, bringing together researchers and students from diverse disciplines who study cytochromes P450. This Symposium captures the excitement of new developments in P450 enzyme discovery and engineering for biotechnological applications, environmental assessment and remediation. Sessions in this meeting include evolutionary and mechanistic comparisons of P450 structures, functional comparisons among microbial, plant and animal P450s.
Wed 25 April 2018
RenewChem workshop Series run by the Department of Chemistry at University of York
Where there’s muck there’s brass? Remediating, with added value, metal and organic wastes from contaminated land
Dr Liz Rylott (CNAP) & Dr Rob McElroy (Dept of Chemistry)
Thursday 23 November 2017
Critical Elements Day, University of York, Green Chemistry
A free one-day symposium focusing on recovery of elements from waste streams, and featuring research highlights from the G8 Phytocat project, which studied the use of plants to extract metals from mine tailings.
Confirmed speakers
Chris Anderson, Massey University
Andrew Hunt, Khon Kaen University
Piat Piatkiewicz, Non-Ferrous Alliance
Ian Fairlamb, University of York
Register for your free place here
28 - 30 November 2017
Some good networking, and positive feedback on our posters
25th- 29th September 2017
14th International Phytotechnologies Conference, Montreal, Canada
Presentations:
Why is the explosive and environmental pollutant 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) toxic and how do plants cope?
Elizabeth L. Rylott, Emily J. Johnston, Astrid Lorenz, Emily Beynon, Fernando Gandia-Herero, Helen Sparrow, Vanda Gunning, Kyriakos Tzafestas and Neil C. Bruce
Understanding the limitations behind uptake of palladium by plants for revegetation and phytomining
Elizabeth L. Rylott, Zakuan A. Harumain, Andrew J. Hunt, James Clark and Neil C. Bruce
Towards developing methods to increase uptake of palladium by plants for revegetation and remediation of
mine wastes
Zakuan Shamsul*, Elizabeth L. Rylott and Neil C. Bruce, University of York, UK
Some amazing science, and time to squeeze in a trip to the Montreal botanic gardens, and gardens of light
June 25 -29 2017
6th International Symposium on Biosorption and Biodegradation/Bioremediation
Prague
Invited Speaker:
"Employing plants to remove the environmental pollutant 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT)"
Rylott E.L., Lorenz A., Beynon E.J., Gandia-Herero F., Sparrow H., Gunning V., Tzafestas K., Bruce N.C.
26th- 29th September 2016
13th International Phytotechnologies Conference, Hangzhou, China
Chairing session:
'Emerging Contaminants'
Presentations:
Elizabeth L. Rylott, Astrid Lorenz, Emily Beynon, Fernando Gandia-Herero, Helen Sparrow, Vanda Gunnning, Kyriakos Tzafestas and Neil C. Bruce, University of York, UK
'Monodehydroascorbate reductase mediates TNT toxicity in plants'
Elizabeth L. Rylott, Emily J. Johnston, Emily Beynon, Astrid Lorenz, Victor Chechik and Neil C. Bruce, University of York, UK
27th- 30th September 2015
12th International Phytotechnologies Conference, Manhattan, Kansas
Platform presentations:
Field trials of genetically modified switchgrass to remediate explosives pollution
Elizabeth L. Rylott* and Neil C. Bruce, University of York, UK;
Long Zhang, Gengyun Zhang, Quyen Nguyen and Stuart E.
Strand, University of Washington, Seattle; Timothy J. Cary and
Antonio J. Palazzo, ERDC-CRREL U.S. Army
Towards developing methods to increase uptake of palladium by plants for revegetation and remediation of
mine wastes
Zakuan Shamsul*, Elizabeth L. Rylott and Neil C. Bruce, University of York, UK
27th- 30th September 2015
Gatsby Annual Plant Science Meeting, Queen's College Oxford
Mankind is facing big challenges: alleviating the poverty, hunger and malnutrition currently afflicting more than one billion people, feeding an expected global population of over nine billion people by 2050 with dwindling water, fossil fuel and nitrogen resources; preventing and treating human diseases and other health issues; surmounting the fall-out from increased climate variability and change. Technology has always been at the centre of human development and progress and while no panacea, plant biotechnology undeniably offers enormous, and exciting, opportunities with which to address many of these challenges.
Plant biotechnology is the use of genetic modification and molecular breeding techniques to produce desirable traits or novel products. Applications include agricultural biotechnology, such as the production of pesticide and herbicide resistant crops; industrial biotechnology to improve processing or produce novel chemicals; and biopharmaceuticals. The technology is also being developed to tackle environmental problems such as increasing soil salinity, drought and environmental pollutants.
This session will give an overview of how plant biotechnology can be used to address global issues then present current developments in both scientific techniques and applications. Food security, human health and the environment are not just big, but fast-approaching challenges and yet plant biotechnology is still in its infancy. We need to establish, safeguard and hone the biotechnological breakthroughs of today for the benefit of future generations.
30th September - 3rd July 2015
11th International Phytotechnologies Conference, Crete
Mini p
Confirmed speakers:
Cathie Martin (John Innes Centre)
Alison Smith (University of Cambridge)
John Pickett (Rothamsted Research)
Peter Eastmond (Rothamsted Research)
GARNet-OpenPlant CRISPR-Cas Workshop
7-8th September 2015
30th June – 3rd July 2015
Session: Plant Biotechnology Tuesday 30th June
Session Chairs: Liz Rylott (University of York) & Cristobal Uauy (John Innes Centre)
lenary on ORGANICS (PAH/Petroleum): Liz RylottSession: Phytoremediation of Organic Contaminants III Wednesday 1st October 2014Session Chairs: Liz Rylott & Chen TU (Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (YIC-CAS))Full Platform Presentations:
“Arabidopsis glutathione transferases detoxify TNT” by Kyriakos Tzafestas, Vanda Gunning, Helen Sparrow, Emily J. Johnston, Andrew S. Brentnall, Jennifer R. Potts, Elizabeth L. Rylott and Neil C. Bruce.
“Using Plants to Remediate TNT and RDX Pollution” by Elizabeth L. Rylott, Long Zhang, Gengyun Zhang, Quyen Nguyen, Timothy J. Cary, Antonio J. Palazzo, Stuart E. Strand, and Neil C. Bruce.
30th March - 1 April 2014
UK PlantSci Conference, York
Presentation at UK PlantSci Conference, York
"Plant Cillit Bang! And the dirt is gone! Using TNT to understand detoxification of organic pollutants by plants"
Watch video on the Journal of Experimental Botany website
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) affect human health and the environment and are of global concern. These synthetic chemical structures are often not found in Nature and are not significantly degraded in the environment. Most organisms on the planet have an ability to cope with low levels of POPs to some degree, and plants are no exception. Many POPs are found in soil and ground water, areas that plant roots are particularly good at penetrating, and plants represent a potential resource for POP remediation. We have used 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) as a model POP to understand how plants cope with the toxicity of organic pollutants. TNT makes a good model POP because it is toxic, recalcitrant to degradation in the environment and is not readily detoxified by the plant. In addition, TNT has been around long enough (<60 years) for some microbes to have evolved an ability to detoxify relatively high levels of TNT. In plants, TNT elicits a genetic response that is similar to that of many POPs; a generic upregulation of Phase I and II transformation and conjugation activities. While plants appear to lack the ability to mineralize TNT, the global flora and fauna offer an astonishing genetic resource with which to tackle POPs such as TNT. I will present a pathway we have uncovered that shows TNT detoxification in plants then demonstrate how genetic engineering can be used to produce plants with the potential to clean-up POPs from the environment using military ranges contaminated with explosives as an example.
