Dancing with Daffodils ~ 180th Lecture Series

About this Event

Join us at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, as we mark 180 years since the foundation of our establishment, the very first agricultural college in the English speaking world and now a leading light in the world of land-based study. We’ll be running a series of events throughout the year, including lectures, debates and open days so do follow us to make sure you stay up to date on our events and celebrations.

Dancing with Daffodils

The third 180th anniversary lecture will take place on Wednesday 16 July 2025 in the Kenneth Russell room, at the Royal Agricultural University. The lecture delivered by Kevin Stephens, along with Xianmin Chang, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (China Programmes) at Royal Agricultural University, is to explore the pitfalls and opportunities of developing new commercial markets for field scale crops, using the development story of hill farm production of daffodils to provide bio-active compounds to the pharma and ag-chem industries.

Mr Kevin Stephens has over 20 years of experience managing development projects across commercial and public sectors, combining his agricultural background with expertise in chemical engineering, an MBA, and an MSc in International Management and Finance. His diverse portfolio includes projects in natural products, engineering, and alternative energy, such as wool applications, waste plastic conversion, and green chemistry innovations. Working together with Professor Xianmin Chang and other colleagues, Kevin’s research in daffodils has led to the development of novel techniques for agronomy, harvesting, and extraction, resulting in bioactive compounds with anti-viral, anti-cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) treatment. This work has contributed to the creation of products like Cerbella (a brain health supplement), Zunveyl (an FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatment), and Aneruct (a methane inhibitor).

Prof Xianmin Chang has over 40 years research experiences. In the last two decades, Prof Chang’s research focusses on growing daffodils for alkaloids for human health. Closely working with pharmaceutical companies, particularly with Mr Kevin Stephens at Agroceutical Products Ltd (APL), his research projects include daffodil material screening, genetic analysis, planting, and alkaloid extraction, isolation and purification. So far, over 500 alkaloids have been identified and one of which is Galanthamine which is now being used to the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. There are some other alkaloids, e.g., Lycorine, Home-Lycorine, Tazettine, Narciclasine, Haemanthamine, with potential treatments including virus diseases, heart failure, cancer (glioma), inflammatory, and impact Protozoa in ruminant digestion which eliminates methane production, also investigated.

Come along to hear their stories and how research in daffodils plays an important role into our future.

Location: RAU Cirencester

Date: 16 July 2025

Time: 18.00 to 20.00

Tickets and parking are free.