Roger N. Beachy was born in 1944 in Plain City, Ohio. His farther was a mennonite minister who left school in the 8th grade.[3][4] He became interested in plant biology as a high school student at Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen, Indiana. In 1966 he completed his BA from Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana.[3] He then pursued a Ph.D. in plant pathology from Michigan State University graduating in 1973. After defending his dissertation, Beachy began a postdoc in the lab of Milton Zaitlin at the University of Arizona but he was only there for nine months when Prof. Zaitlin moved the entire research group to Cornell University, where Beachy remained for another four years.[3]
Academic career
In 1978 Beachy was hired as an assistant professor in the Biology Department of Washington University in St. Louis. He remained at Washington University, being promoted to associate and then full professor and becoming the head of the Center for Plant Science and Biotechnology, until 1991.[5] From 1991 to 1998 he was the head of the Plant Biology division of Scripps Research Institute. In 1999 he was recruited to be the inaugural president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO as well as resuming his appointment was Washington University. He left the Danforth Center in 2009 when he was appointed as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture by President Obama, a role he served in until 2011.[1] He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2009. From 2014-2020 he was a member of the National Science Board.[6]
Research
Beachy is an expert in plant virology and biotechnology of plants. He established principles for the genetic engineering of plants, that make them resistant to viral diseases.[citation needed]
His research at Washington University in St. Louis, in collaboration with Monsanto Company, led to the development of the world’s first genetically modified food crop, a variety of tomato that was modified for resistance to virus disease. He demonstrated pathogen-derived resistance in plants and produced the first disease-resistant transgenic plant. He also showed that by transferring and expressing the coat protein gene of a virus in plants (coat protein-mediated resistance - CP-MR), these transgenic plants become resistant to viral infection. His discovery of the CP-MR led to the development of virus-resistant varieties of potato, tomato, pepper, cucumber, squash, sugar beets, papaya and plum.[citation needed]
Recipient of the 2001 Wolf Prize in Agriculture with James E. Womack "for the use of recombinant DNA technology, to revolutionize plant and animal sciences, paving the way for applications to neighboring fields".[9]
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The exact definition of a genetically modified organism and what constitutes genetic engineering varies, with the most common being an organism altered in a way that "does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination". A wide variety of organisms have been genetically modified (GM), including animals, plants, and microorganisms.
The pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica is a member of the Ascomycota. This necrotrophic fungus is native to East Asia and South East Asia and was introduced into Europe and North America in the early 1900s. Strains of the fungus spread more or less rapidly and caused significant tree loss in both regions. Strains of the fungus can be more or less virulent.
Martinus Willem Beijerinck was a Dutch microbiologist and botanist who was one of the founders of virology and environmental microbiology. He is credited with the co-discovery of viruses (1898), which he called "contagium vivum fluidum".
Plant viruses are viruses that have the potential to affect plants. Like all other viruses, plant viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that do not have the molecular machinery to replicate without a host. Plant viruses can be pathogenic to vascular plants.
Adolf Eduard Mayer was a German agricultural biologist whose work on tobacco mosaic disease played an important role in the discovery of tobacco mosaic virus and viruses in general.
Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of viruses (1892), and one of the founders of virology.
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is an independent, not-for-profit research institute dedicated to plant science located in the Creve Coeur community of Saint Louis County, Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1998 by William Henry Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis and named after his father, and established through a $60 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, a $50 million gift from the Monsanto Fund, the donation of 40 acres of land from Monsanto, and $25 million in tax credits from the State of Missouri.
Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) is a pathogenic plant virus in the genus Potyvirus and the virus family Potyviridae which primarily infects the papaya tree.
Maize streak virus (MSV) is a virus primarily known for causing maize streak disease (MSD) in its major host, and which also infects over 80 wild and domesticated grasses. It is an insect-transmitted pathogen of maize in the genus Mastrevirus of the family Geminiviridae that is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa and neighbouring Indian Ocean island territories such as Madagascar, Mauritius and La Reunion. The A-strain of MSV (MSV-A) causes sporadic maize streak disease epidemics throughout the maize-growing regions of Africa. MSV was first described by the South African entomologist Claude Fuller who referred to it in a 1901 report as "mealie variegation".
Elsayed Elsayed Wagih PhD, DIC, CIDTT is an Egyptian professor of virology and biotechnology and vice President of the Arab Society for Biotechnology. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. Wagih is well known for having invented Zymoblot, the fastest available microtechnique to detect gene expression and/or enzyme activity in any biological specimen as well as the ”Mirror Image in vivo electro-blotting technique” that detects virus particles or any foreign protein in any tissue. He also discovered two viruses reported under his name in the world data bank of viruses, the first was named "Peanut Chlorotic Ringspot Virus (PCRV)" and the second was called “Peanut Top Paralysis (PTPV)".
Plant disease resistance protects plants from pathogens in two ways: by pre-formed structures and chemicals, and by infection-induced responses of the immune system. Relative to a susceptible plant, disease resistance is the reduction of pathogen growth on or in the plant, while the term disease tolerance describes plants that exhibit little disease damage despite substantial pathogen levels. Disease outcome is determined by the three-way interaction of the pathogen, the plant, and the environmental conditions.
Alice S. Huang is an American biologist specialized in microbiology and virology. She served as President of AAAS during the 2010–2011 term.
Bernard Nathan Fields was an American microbiologist and virologist. Fields was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Milton Zaitlin was an American virologist who spent most of his academic career as a professor of plant pathology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Johannes A. Jehle is a German scientist for insect virology, and plant protection. The focus of his research is the use of microorganisms and viruses for biological control of insect pests and the development of sustainable methods for plant protection. He heads the Institute for Biological Plant Control of the Julius Kühn-Institut in Darmstadt and is an adjunct Professor at the Technical University Darmstadt. He was President of the Society of Invertebrate Pathology in 2016/2018.
Raymond L. Rodriguez is an American professor of biology, specializing in molecular biology, genomics and biotechnology. His current research interests include diet-genome interactions, plant-made pharmaceuticals and the food/brain axis. Rodriguez is also an inventor, and entrepreneur. His research at the University of California, San Francisco in the 1970s helped lay the foundation for the biotechnology industry. He also holds several issued US patents. He is involved in programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion for women and underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
James C. Carrington is a plant biologist and the current president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. In 2005 he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2008 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Andrew O. Jackson is an American plant virologist.
Michael S. Diamond is a biomedical researcher, physician-scientist specializing in virology and immunology, with a particular emphasis on emerging RNA viruses such as flaviviruses, alphaviruses, and coronaviruses. He is a professor at Washington University School of Medicine, where he holds the Herbert S. Gasser Professorship of Medicine.
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