Helen Battle Lecture Series
Dr. Helen Battle had a long and highly-distinguished career at Western. She was a Western alumna who graduated with a BA in Honors Zoology in 1923 and completed her MA in 1924. She earned her PhD in Zoology from the University of Toronto in 1928 and was the first woman in Canada to earn a PhD in marine biology. Dr. Battle earned many honours in her lifetime, including the Canada Centennial Medal in 1967, honorary degrees from Western and Carleton, and the UWO Alumni Association Award of Merit. She died in 1994 at the age of 90.
HELEN BATTLE 2012
BUGS Helen Battle Lecture is hosting Dr. van de Peer from the University of Gent, Belgium
WHO: Dr. van de Peer
WHAT: Helen Battle Lecture & Meet and Greet
WHERE: B&GS 0153
WHEN: Feb 14th
Lecture: 11:30-12:30
Meet & Greet: 12:30 – 1:30
Dr., van de Peer is one of the world leaders on Bioinformatics and a collaborator on our spider mite genome work. He will be talking on the evolutionary significance of ancient genome duplications.
Summary:
Many organisms are currently polyploid, or have a polyploid ancestry and now have secondarily 'diploidized' genomes. This finding is surprising because retained whole-genome duplications (WGDs) are exceedingly rare, suggesting that polyploidy is usually an evolutionary dead end. We argue that ancient genome doublings could probably have survived only under very specific conditions, but that, whenever established, they might have had a pronounced impact on species diversification, and led to an increase in biological complexity and the origin of evolutionary novelties.
PAST LECTURES
The Biology Undergraduate Society is proud to feature
Dr. Jeremy McNeil for the 2010 Helen Battle Lecture
When: 5:30pm, Nov 16th, 2010
Where: HSB 236
The 2010 fall lecture of the semi-annual Helen Battle Lecture series features Dr. Jeremy McNeil, on his work on the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus). His studies includes their seasonal and daily migration pattern, communication (chemical, visual, tactile, etc), chemical signals, pheromones and allomones, their use of milkweed defence chemicals and predators’ adaptation to overcome these chemical defences.
The Biology Undergraduate Society
is proud to feature
Dr. Amanda Moehring for the 2009 Helen Battle Lecture.
Date: Monday November 16 th 2009
Time: 5:00-6:00pm
Location: NCB 117
There is a wide variety of living creatures on this planet, yet one of the great unanswered questions in biology is how this variety came to be. What are the genetic changes that cause one continuous population to diverge into two distinct species, and prevent them from merging back together?
Dr. Moehring is the current featured faculty Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics. Join us as she gives her talk involving the Mechanisms of Speciation and her research on the genetics of behavior and species formation.
2008 BUGS Helen Battle Lecture
Featuring: Dr. Beth MacDougall-Shackleton
Research: Behavioural ecology and population genetics of songbirds
How do songbirds find their mates?
Maybe every songbird has a little heart song of its own.
Come to BUGS Helen Battle Lecture and Dr. MacDougall-Shackleton will tell you all about the importance of a song
BUGS (Biology Undergrauate Society)
invites you to the
2008 Helen Battle Lecture
Dr. Helen Rodd
University of Toronto
"How to Choose Your Mate (If You’re a Female Guppy).”
Dr. Rodd will be speaking about her research and why rare males have an edge with the ladies!
The lecture will be held on Wednesday March 19th at 5:30pm in Physics and Astronomy Room 215.
The Changing Paradigm of HIV Pathogenesis
FEATURING: DR. DONALD BRANCH, Affiliate Scientist at the Division of Cellular & Molecular Biology of the Toronto General Research Institute
Wednesday March 21, 2007
5:30 –7:00 pm. North Campus Room 114
"Taking
Off With Bats"
FEATURING: DR. BROCK FENTON
The Department of Biology
University of Western Ontario
Monday November 13 2006, 5:30 pm., Biology and Geology room 116
Learn about Dr. Fenton’s exploration into the lives of bats. He will talk about bat ecology and behaviour, echolocation and morphology.
**Contact bugs@uwo.ca for more information**
Monday, March 13, 2006 at 6:00,
DNA Barcodes & Biodiversity
Dr. Paul Hebert,
Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Molecular Biodiversity,
Department of Integrative Biology
University of Guelph
Tuesday, November 22 2005 at 7:00 PM
BUGS (Biology Undergraduate Society) is hosting Western's own Dr. Kathleen Hill :
"Mutation Scene Investigation: Will geneticists offer genomic screens to tell us of our Mutation Load?"
Mutations are permanent alterations in DNA that contribute to disease and 
aging but their origin is generally a mystery. It is important to identify what causes mutational events in order to preserve the integrity of genetic material, prevent disease and achieve healthy aging. The mutation itself and the site in the DNA where it occurs is a scene rich in the evidence that can lead to the identification of the chemicals and cellular processes guilty of the mutational event. Mutation Investigators have very few good tools for detecting mutations and studying mutations in the greater context of the genome, cell, tissue and whole organism. Dr. Hill’s lecture will introduce you to the standard tools of a Mutation Investigator and present a new approach for detecting and studying mutations in single cells in intact tissues. We will also look at a cold case where strong evidence points to key suspects capable of certain mutations that accumulate with age but, the culprit remains at large.
