Dennis Gonsalves, former Cornell Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Pathology, and his research team received the prestigious 2002 Alexander von Humboldt Award for Agriculture at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., Nov. 4. During the ceremony, Jodi E. Creasap, a third-year graduate student in Cornell's department of plant pathology, received the Alfred Toepfer Scholarship, the student component of the von Humboldt Award.
The von Humboldt award, which comes with a $15,000 prize, is presented annually to the person judged to have made the most significant contribution to American agriculture during the previous five years. Gonsalves and his team were recognized for developing two virus-resistant papayas that saved the $47 million Hawaiian papaya industry from ruin by the ringspot virus.
"SunUp" and "Rainbow" were the first genetically engineered fruit to be commercialized in the United States. The project utilized the gene gun invented at Cornell and other innovative technologies in what now serves as a model system for developing virus resistance in fruits and vegetables where traditional breeding methods are not successful.
"What inspired our team was the knowledge that we had to apply the best science we could to solve very real problems for farmers and families who were desperate for a solution," said Gonsalves.
The team's members are Richard Manshardt, professor of tropical plant and soil sciences at the University of Hawaii; Maureen Fitch, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Jerry Slightom, a molecular biologist with Pharmacia Co. When the project started 14 years ago, Fitch was a graduate student of Mans--hardt's and Slightom was a molecular biologist with Upjohn. Gonsalves was the project leader. This was the first time in 28 years that the von Humboldt prize went to a team of scientists.
During an emotional acceptance speech before members of the foundation, colleagues and friends, Gonsalves called the event his "swan song." The Geneva Experiment Station has been the center of Gonsalves' research program for 25 years, until last spring, when he left Cornell to become the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii.
During her keynote address at the ceremony, Susan A. Henry, the Ronald A. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said, "This is an eloquent story of how the principles of genetic engineering can solve a very real problem that had no other traditional solution." She encouraged the assembled group of Cornell scientists and former von Humboldt awardees to "continue to explore the use of all available technologies" in solving the world's food problems, and "to answer questions that are raised by their use intelligently."
"We are very honored to be involved in this award and to have another awardee at the station," said James Hunter, director of the experiment station. Previous Cornell winners include Professors Wendell Roelofs, Dale Bauman and Steven D. Tanksley.
The von Humboldt Foundation was founded by Alfred Toepfer (1894-1993), a German grain merchant and philanthropist, and named in honor of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century German naturalist and geographer.
The Toepfer scholarship, won by Creasap, usually goes to a graduate or doctoral student working in the von Humboldt winner's lab, but Gonsalves suggested the scholarship go to a student studying plant pathology at the Geneva Experiment Station, where he had worked for 25 years, rather than one at his new post at the USDA in Hawaii. This request was approved by members of the von Humboldt Foundation, who oversee the award.
Creasap's current research involves the bacterium Agrobacterium vitis, which causes crown gall disease of grapes. Crown gall can decrease yield, eventually kills grapevines and is very difficult to eradicate from a vineyard once established. Creasap is researching which cells in grape wounds are susceptible to infection by the bacteria and the role that plant hormones play in initiating development. She is also investigating how a nonpathogenic strain of A. vitis may function as a biological control.
"The award provides Jodi with a great opportunity to work in a leading laboratory in Germany that studies transformation of plant cells by Agrobacterium," said Thomas Burr, chairman of the plant pathology department at the Geneva Experiment Station and the scholarship's major adviser. Next summer, Creasap plans to study with Dr. Cornelia Ullrich at the Institut Fur Botanik, Darmstadt University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany.
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