FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Anne Osbourn, a world-renowned plant scientist and founder of the Science, Art and Writing Initiative, is the guest speaker at the Templeton Lecture hosted by the Department of Plant Pathology in the University of Arkansas' Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

Osbourn is presenting two lectures with one targeted specifically for a broad audience. These lectures are funded by an endowment from the family of George E. Templeton II to promote knowledge and understanding of plant pathology.

The first lecture is at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 29, in Gearhart Hall Auditorium (Room 26). 

The science-based seminar is "Harnessing Plant Metabolic Diversity." Plants produce a vast array of chemicals (metabolites) to defend themselves against stresses caused by pathogens, the environment or other competing plants in their ecological niches. Osbourn's research has significantly contributed to understanding the multiple functions of these compounds, their diversity, evolution and potential use for human health.

The second lecture is at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 30, in the Leland Tolett Auditorium (Room 211) in the John W. Tyson Building.

The broader-audience seminar features Osbourn's development and coordination of the Science, Art and Writing Initiative (www.sawtrust.org), an outreach program to teach science in schools by integrating scientific knowledge with art and writing. 

A reception in the atrium immediately follows the seminar.

Both events are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Templeton Lectures are named in honor of George Earl Templeton II, a distinguished plant pathologist at the U of A from 1958 to his retirement in 1996. Templeton was internationally recognized as an expert in rice diseases and fungal toxins with a special interest in the biological control of weeds with fungal plant pathogens. He was instrumental in establishing UA's Rosen Center for Alternative Pest Control in 1989. Templeton's research files (including materials originally collected by his mentor, E.M. Cralley) are held by Mullins Library Special Collections, http://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/templeton.html.

Templeton developed the first commercial mycoherbicide "Collego," registered by Upjohn in 1982, for use in rice and soybeans. Its development provided a model used worldwide to develop biological herbicides. He also characterized the toxin "tentoxin" produced by the fungal pathogen Alternaria alternata as being the cause for disease symptoms in plants. Tentoxin is now used as a tool in researching plant photosynthesis.

About the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences: Bumpers College provides life-changing opportunities to position and prepare graduates who will be leaders in the businesses associated with foods, family, the environment, agriculture, sustainability and human quality of life; and who will be first-choice candidates of employers looking for leaders, innovators, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The college is named for Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and longtime U.S. senator who made the state prominent in national and international agriculture.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.