BTI begins national search for new president

Charles Arntzen, right, president and chief executive officer of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, speaks with Kraig Adler, Cornell vice provost for life sciences, at BTI's 75th anniversary dinner Oct. 4 in the Statler Hotel Ballroom. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

The Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. (BTI), located on campus, has begun a national search for a successor to Charles J. Arntzen, who will be stepping down when his current term as president ends next year.

Arntzen, who has been president and chief executive officer of BTI since 1995, informed the institute's board of directors this summer that he will not seek reappointment.

"My reason for not staying on as president is simple," Arntzen said. "I would like to devote the next several years to more personal involvement in our edible vaccine project. We are now at a stage of research in which we can start clinical testing in developing countries, where lower-cost vaccines are urgently needed. I would like to devote my energies to ensuring that we are successful."

Arntzen and his colleagues are completing the third human clinical trial in the vaccine project using potatoes that express antigenic proteins. "The results from this study will be very important," he said. "I am confident that they will verify and extend our human trials on diarrhea-preventing vaccines that provided proof of concept for plant-based vaccines. In coming years, I want to spend more time transferring our technology to the developing world, and that is going to take some concentrated effort that I would not be able to provide from my current office."

Arntzen plans to continue his research at the institute. "This is truly an exceptional place to work, and -- as I have learned -- is a wonderful platform from which interesting, new ideas in science can be launched," he said.

Before joining BTI, Arntzen was professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M University. He also served as an adjunct professor in physiology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. Before that, he was the deputy chancellor for agriculture and dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M and served as director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.