Professor Howard Atkinson Patents & Licensing
 Professor Howard Atkinson |
Howard has been a Professor at Leeds since 1992. He heads an internationally leading research group within The Centre for Plant Sciences (CPS). Howard co-founded CPS that now has Gold Star status in the University.
His childhood interests in Biology culminated in a Zoology degree and PhD at The University of Newcastle. In Leeds, Howard has developed a research portfolio that spans from fundamental to strategic research.
Making progress that is relevant to the world's problems is as important to Howard as curiosity-driven research. His group seeks to control plant parasitic nematodes. These hidden pests cause more than $125 billion annual losses to world agriculture and often require environmentally damaging pesticides for their effective control. Howard’s group works in a continuum from nematode plant interactions to gene discovery and biotechnology-based application of the new knowledge it gains. He is committed to publicly funded research for the public good. Both DFID and USAID support adaptive research for subsistence crops like banana, rice and potato in Africa and elsewhere with donation of technology to subsistence farmers worldwide. He has collaborations in Uganda, India and China where he is one of three CPS staff that hold visiting chairs. These appointments relate to the establishment of a virtual lab. with The Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing (http://jlps.org/)
Howard's contribution to the club is varied but his specific interest is Patents & Licensing of ideas. He has had much experience over the years having filed in excess of ten patents that are relevant to nematode control.
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