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.
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), from animals to plants and microorganisms. Genes have been transferred within the same species, across species, and even across kingdoms. New genes can be introduced, or endogenous genes can be enhanced, altered, or knocked out.
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.
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 discovery of viruses, which he called "contagium vivum fluidum".
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.
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.
Adolf Eduard Mayer was a German agricultural chemist 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.
Plum pox, also known as sharka, is the most devastating viral disease of stone fruit from the genus Prunus. The disease is caused by the plum pox virus (PPV), and the different strains may infect a variety of stone fruit species including peaches, apricots, plums, nectarine, almonds, and sweet and tart cherries. Wild and ornamental species of Prunus may also become infected by some strains of the virus.
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".
Genetically modified plants have been engineered for scientific research, to create new colours in plants, deliver vaccines, and to create enhanced crops. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of Agrobacterium for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors. Many plant cells are pluripotent, meaning that a single cell from a mature plant can be harvested and then under the right conditions form a new plant. This ability is most often taken advantage by genetic engineers through selecting cells that can successfully be transformed into an adult plant which can then be grown into multiple new plants containing transgene in every cell through a process known as tissue culture.
James E. Womack is 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)".
Dennis Gonsalves is an American phytopathologist. He has created with his team two virus-resistant papaya cultivars called SunUp and Rainbow, which rescued the papaya sector in Hawaii from the devastating effects of the papaya ringspot virus that hit in the late 1990s.
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.
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.
