Roger N. Beachy

Last updated

Roger N. Beachy
RogerBeachy.jpeg
Born
Plain City, Ohio, United States [1]
Alma mater Goshen College, Michigan State University
Known forDeveloping the first genetically engineered food crop, a virus resistant tomato.
SpouseTeresa S. Brown Beachy [2]
AwardsWolf Prize in Agriculture, AAAS Fellow
Scientific career
Institutions Washington University in St. Louis, Scripps Research Institute, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, USDA
Thesis "Studies on tobacco mosaic virus using hypersensitive tobacco tissue cultures"  (1973)

Roger N. Beachy is an American biologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences who studies plant virology. He was the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the first director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Contents

Birth, family and education

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]

He is a second cousin of Stanford biologist Philip A. Beachy and historian Robert M. Beachy, and is also a relative of author Stephen Beachy.[ citation needed ]

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.

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.

Awards and honors

Notes

  1. 1 2 "| NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  2. "Alumni Highlight - Roger N. Beachy '66" . Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 "Roger Beachy".
  4. "A Conversation with Roger Beachy, President Emeritus of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center". February 17, 2012.
  5. "Roger Beachy : USDA ARS".
  6. "Terms expire May 10, 2026 () Staff | NSF - National Science Foundation".
  7. "Elected Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)". www.aaas.org. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  8. "Roger N. Beachy".
  9. "Roger N. Beachy". December 10, 2018.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genetically modified organism</span> Organisms whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering methods

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chestnut blight</span> Fungus disease of chestnut trees

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. The fungus spread rapidly and caused significant tree loss in both regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martinus Beijerinck</span> Dutch microbiologist (1851–1931)

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant virus</span> Virus that affects plants

Plant viruses are viruses that 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodor Otto Diener</span> American plant pathologist (1921–2023)

Theodor Otto Diener was a Swiss-American plant pathologist. In 1971, he discovered that the causative agent of the potato spindle tuber disease is not a virus, but a novel agent, which consists solely of a short strand of single-stranded RNA without a protein capsid, eighty times smaller than the smallest viruses. He proposed to name it, and similar agents yet to be discovered, viroids. Viroids displaced viruses as the smallest known infectious agents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Mayer</span> German agronomist

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dmitri Ivanovsky</span> Russian Botanist (1864–1920)

Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of viruses (1892), and one of the founders of virology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Danforth Plant Science Center</span> Botanical research institution in Missouri, US

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.

<i>Papaya ringspot virus</i> Species of virus

Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) is a pathogenic plant virus in the genus Potyvirus and the virus family Potyviridae which primarily infects the papaya tree.

<i>Maize streak virus</i> Pathogenic virus

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".

James E. Womack was an American biologist and a professor at Texas A&M University.

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)".

Bernard Nathan Fields was an American microbiologist and virologist. Fields was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Philip Needleman was an American pharmacologist and academic. Needleman was a professor and associate dean at the Washington University School of Medicine and he served as an executive at Monsanto/Searle. He is credited with discovering the first thromboxane synthase inhibitor, the inflammatory substance known as COX-2 and the cardiac hormone known as atriopeptin. Needleman was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

<i>Carnation Italian ringspot virus</i> Plant virus impacting carnation plants

Carnation Italian Ringspot Virus (CIRV) is a plant virus that impacts carnation plants. These flowers are a popular choice in ornamental flower arrangements. This article will provide an overview of CIRV. This will include the history of the virus, information on transmission, symptoms, and characteristics, and research about how it relates to plant physiology.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James C. Carrington</span> American plant biologist

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.