UNT's BioDiscovery Institute has announced that Dr. Luis Herrera-Estrella will be a guest speaker for their second annual Distinguished Speaker Series. The two-day event will include a more general presentation at the Lyceum in the UNT Student Union Building on Thursday, October 10 at 4pm, and a more technical seminar on Friday, October 11 at 3pm in the Eagle Student Services Building (ESSC225). Both talks welcome the public; a reception in the Union Rooftop Garden follows Thursday's presentation.

One of the top crop scientists in the world, Herrera-Estrella, is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and he has recently moved to Texas Tech University where he was named President's Distinguished Professor of Plant Genomics and is the director of the Center for Functional Genomics of Abiotic Stress. Herrera-Estrella's research is focused on how crop plants adapt to environmental stresses such as high temperatures, drought conditions and poor nutrient availability.

Herrera-Estrella is known and respected worldwide for his work in crop genomics in plants like maize, avocado and cotton, and earned the distinction in 2015 as one of the 100 most influential people in biotechnology by Scientific American. Before coming to Texas Tech, Herrera-Estrella served for many years as the director of the National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (LANGEBIO) in Guanajuato, Mexico, where he continues to hold the position of professor emeritus.

His presentation on Thursday, October 10 at 4pm in the Lyceum will be a personal account of his work to develop crops that are able to thrive in marginal soils and changing temperatures. His presentation on Friday, October 11 at 3pm will coincide with the Department of Biological Sciences Seminar Series and will be entitled, "Molecular mechanisms that regulate changes in root system architecture in response to nutrient availability". Fridays seminar will be held in ESSC225.