Alexandre ANTONELLI

Born in Brazil, Professor Alexandre Antonelli was fascinated by biodiversity from a young age and cites seeing the metallic wings of a blue morpho butterfly flying towards him in the Atlantic rainforest as one of his earliest memories. He began his studies in biology at the University of Campinas in Brazil, obtained a PhD at the University of Gothenburg in 2008, and completed a post-doc at the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 2010. Ever since, Antonelli’s research has focused on explaining the origins and evolution of the rich biodiversity of tropical regions, with a focus on the Andean and Amazonian regions of South America. Taking up the role of Kew’s new director of Science in February 2019, Alex has wide-ranging ambitions for how Kew scientists can help tackle the problems facing the world today using plant-based solutions. Alex vision for Kew Science is to identify plants and fungi that can help to make the world a better place. Specifically, he wants to find species that can contribute to delivering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of addressing poverty, inequality, climate change and environmental degradation, using the expertise of Kew’s 350 scientists and Kew’s vast collections of plants and fungal specimens, two billion seeds stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, as well as preserved plant tissue, wood and pollen. In 2020, Alex will set Kew’s new Science Strategy, setting out his vision for taking Kew’s science through to 2025. The new strategy will look to address biodiversity loss through all Kew’s future scientific initiatives, and is likely to build on Kew’s expertise in key areas: studying plants with characteristics that may allow them to cope with climate change, underpinning food security by using genetically diverse crop wild relatives to bolster existing food plants, and using MSB seeds to explore potential sources of new foods, fibres and medicines.

Photo credit: Malin Arnesson

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