Plant scientist Dale Sanders

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Professor Dale Sanders has spent much of his life studying plants, seeking to understand why some thrive in a particular environment while others struggle. His ground breaking research on their molecular machinery showed how plants extract nutrients from the soil and store essential elements. Since plants can’t move, their survival depends on these responses. In 2020, after 27 years at the University of York, he became the Director of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, one of the premier plant research institutions in the world. Meeting the food needs of a growing global population as the climate changes is a major challenge. And, Dale says, it’s not only about maximising yields. We need crops that are more resilient and more nutritious. Drought resistant crop varieties, for example. And zinc-rich white rice. Dale talks to Jim about how plant science is helping to feed the world in a sustainable way and why plant scientists don’t always get the recognition they deserve. Producer: Anna Buckley

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Newscast is the unscripted chats behind the headlines.
0:05.6	It's informed, but informal.
0:07.5	We pick the day's top stories and we find experts who can really dig into them. We use our colleagues in the newsroom and
0:14.4	our contacts. Some people pick up the phone rather faster than others.
0:18.0	We sometimes literally run around the BBC building to grab the very best guests.
0:23.4	Join us for daily news chats to get you ready for today's conversations.
0:28.3	Newscast, listen on BBC sounds.
0:31.4	This is Discovery from the BBC.
0:35.0	I'm Jim El Killelli and in today's program I'm in conversation with a leading scientist
0:40.0	about their life and research.
0:42.0	Welcome to the life scientific.
0:44.0	My guest today has spent his life studying plants,
0:48.0	understanding how they work right down at the level of individual molecules.
0:52.0	Dale Sanders groundbreaking research. the level of individual molecules.
0:53.0	Dale Sanders' groundbreaking research revealed the molecular mechanisms that enables
0:58.0	plants to respond to their environment and to store essential elements.
1:03.0	And he found a way to make crops more nutritious.
1:06.2	In 2010, after 27 years at York University,
1:10.2	he became the director of one of the Premier Plants research institutions in the world, the John Innes Center in Norwich.
1:16.5	Meeting the food needs of a growing world population in a changing global climate is a major challenge and understanding what it is that
1:25.1	enables some plants to thrive where other struggle has never been more important.
1:30.3	Professor Dale Sanders, welcome to the life scientific.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.