The IPOP podcast project
Plants outnumber humans by 7,500 times and account for 82% of the earth's biomass (compared to humans at 0.01%).* Plants are the cornerstone of life and deserve more attention than they tend to get. Our personal research focus is on exploring their use as medicines in modern pharmacy, with a number of drugs being based – or produced directly – from plants. With climate change and the loss of biodiversity, understanding the relationship between medicine and plants – as well as the use of plants more generally – is becoming increasingly important.
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Our monthly podcast interviews medicinal plant researchers, exploring a range of disciplines in the humanities and sciences such as anthropology, historical studies, phylogenetics and biochemistry.
Whatever ways people have harnessed plants, we like to investigate....
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The podcast has a focus on all things medico-botanical, but we have been known to take a trip into the wild side and look at food, materials and technology - as long as it has a botanical theme.
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Please contact us if you have a story you'd like to share.
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Funded with thanks by Humanities and Arts Research Institute (HARI),
Royal Holloway, University of London.
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Ash Walker for IPOP Music
Lisa Swallow for IPOP Logo artwork
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About Us

Kim Walker
PhD Candidate
Royal Holloway, UOL &
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
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*Bar-On, Y., Phillips, R., & Milo, R., (2018). The biomass distribution on earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 115 (25) 6506-6511.
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