What's On arrow

Science on Sundays – June 2025

Patterns and form: Lessons from plants

  • 15th June 2025 - 15th June 2025
  • 2:30 pm

Dr Neha Bhatia, Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Nature has provided us with many beautiful patterns and forms to admire—for example, patterns on butterfly wings, stripes on a zebra, striking arrangements of leaves and flowers in plants, and diverse leaf shapes. A fundamental question in biology is how living forms are generated and diversified during evolution. Plants offer an attractive system to study this problem as they continue to develop their organs post-embryonically, allowing us to investigate organ initiation and follow their development over time. In my talk, I will discuss how the combined use of different techniques such as advanced microscopy, genetics and computational approaches can help us understand the genetically controlled mechanisms of patterning and growth that underlie the generation of plant forms.

Four leaves at various stages of development captured using time-lapse imaging. Different cells marked with different colours.
Progressive stages of Arabidopsis leaf development, starting as a young leaf bud (first image in the series) captured using time-lapse imaging.Click for information

Science on Sundays

A programme of free, informal, monthly science talks bringing the latest discoveries in plant science, as well as research linked to the plant collection at CUBG to our visitors in a 30 minute nutshell.

We will be running these talks live from the Botanic Garden Classroom for those visiting the Garden on the day.
Free with normal Garden admission.
Please check the website and social media for updates.
Suitable for adults and children aged 12+.
Talks run monthly March to July.

icon

Did you know?

Lord Byron, the famous Romantic poet, is said to have kept a bear while he was a student at Trinity College in the 1800s.