Harberd, Nicholas

PERSONAL:

Education: Cambridge University, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., 1981.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Colney Ln., Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7UH, England. E-mail—nicholas.harberd@bbsrc.ac.uk

CAREER:

University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral researcher, 1986-88; John Innes Centre, Norwich, Norfolk, England, project leader, 1989—; University of East Anglia, Norwich, honorary professor.

WRITINGS:

Seed to Seed: The Secret Life of Plants, Bloomsbury (London, England), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Physiology, BioEssays, Nature, Journal of Experimental Botany, and Genes and Development.

SIDELIGHTS:

As a cell and developmental biologist, Nicholas Harberd focuses his research on the growth and development of plants, specifically the laboratory-favorite Arabidopsis thaliana. It was years after beginning his research with Arabidopsis that Harberd came upon the plant in its wild setting, and the encounter inspired him to return to the plant's site to follow its progress. Over the space of a year Harberd logged his observations and musings and ultimately compiled them into Seed to Seed: The Secret Life of Plants.Written for a lay audience, the work intersperses a diary of the plant's life with a description of what is known about plant development.

A contributor to Publishers Weekly remarked that "even the most hardcore city dweller will be moved" by Harberd's depiction of the lowly thale-cress plant. Seed to Seed was described as "an illuminating glimpse of a dedicated scientist at work" by a Science News contributor. Anthony Doerr, writing for the Boston Globe, called the book "remarkable," adding that it is "notable because [Harberd] … is as comfortable explaining the underpinnings of cell growth as marveling at the tiny, self-contained miracle that is a seed."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2006, George Cohen, review of Seed to Seed: The Secret Life of Plants, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2006, review of Seed to Seed, p. 53.

Science News, May 13, 2006, review of Seed to Seed, p. 303.

ONLINE

Boston Globe Online,http://www.boston.com/ (May 21, 2006), Anthony Doerr, review of Seed to Seed.

John Innes Centre Web Site,http://www.jic.ac.uk/ (November 8, 2006), profile of Nicholas Harberd.