Leslie Audus
British botanist (1911-2011)
Leslie John Audus (9 December 1911 – 5 May 2011) was a British botanist and an international authority on the hormones that control plant growth. During World War II, while being held in a Japanese internment camp, he cultured yeast to feed and save the lives of his fellow POW's.
Early life and education
Audus was born in Isleham in The Fens of Cambridgeshire. He was educated at Soham Grammar School and in 1929 was awarded a scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge. In 1934, he was a Frank Smart University student in botany, at Cambridge. After receiving his degree, he stayed in Cambridge to pursue postgraduate work. In 1935, he went to University College, Cardiff, where he continued to research plant physiology and taught plant science.
World War II
Audus joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1940, after which he received training in radar. In 1941, he was posted to Malaya as a flight lieutenant. While there, he explored the rain forest in Johore with John Corner, the assistant director of the Johore botanical gardens, and later became a distinguished botanist at Cambridge.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leslie Audus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.